Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) vs Trinity Large Thinking
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) by Anthropic or Trinity Large Thinking by Arcee AI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-08-17.
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Ma… scores 36.6 points higher (55.3 vs 18.7) but costs 16× as much to run the benchmark ($4011 vs $255; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Ma… when you need intelligence above 18.7, and Trinity Large Thinking when 18.7 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) | Trinity Large Thinking | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 55.3 | 18.7 | −66.2% Trinity Large Thinking is 66.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,010.51 | $254.72 | −93.6% Trinity Large Thinking is 93.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 174.60s | 13.49s | −92.3% Trinity Large Thinking is 92.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.23 / $0.88 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Trinity Large Thinking vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort): 66.2% less intelligence, 93.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 92.3% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) scores 63.10 for $3836.
- Trinity Large Thinking is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Luna (max) scores 52.30 for $172.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5/trinity-large-thinking · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5/trinity-large-thinking?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill