Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 16, 2026

Claude 3 Opus vs Claude Opus 4.6 benchmark

Name: Claude 3 Opus vs Claude Opus 4.6 AI benchmark comparison
Creator: CompareLLM
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This page compares Claude 3 Opus (Anthropic) and Claude Opus 4.6 (Anthropic) using the latest snapshots we have as of Aug 16, 2026. On preference Elo, Claude Opus 4.6 is ahead by 326 points (1,574 vs 1,248; seed-bootstrap (Aug 1, 2026)). On SWE-bench coding, Claude Opus 4.6 resolves 75.9% versus 38.4% (seed-bootstrap (Aug 1, 2026)). Claude Opus 4.6 streams faster (64 tok/s) while Claude Opus 4.6 is the cheaper output token ($25/1M). Claude Opus 4.6 has the larger context window (1M tokens). Every cell below is a dated snapshot from a named public source — we do not invent missing scores, and we do not run SWE-bench ourselves.

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Anthropic

Claude 3 Opus

Original Claude 3 flagship. Kept so opus 3 vs later Opus and vs GPT-4o still resolve.

Elo 1,248$75/1M out

Anthropic

Claude Opus 4.6

Follow-on Opus release. Slightly behind 4.5 on official SWE-bench bash-only in the last published sweep; stronger long-horizon agent traces.

Elo 1,574$25/1M out

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Quick vs:vs Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Claude 3.7 Sonnet vs GPT-5

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Claude 3 Opus (0)vsClaude Opus 4.6 (10)

Claude 3 Opus: 0W (0%)Overall: Claude Opus 4.6Claude Opus 4.6: 10W (100%)

← Claude 3 OpusClaude Opus 4.6 →

Claude Opus 4.6 (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy

Preference Elo

1,248vs1,574

Coding Elo

—vs1,570

SWE-bench

38.4%vs75.9%

LiveBench

46.2%vs72%

GPQA Diamond

50.4%vs84.8%

Claude 3 Opus: 0WClaude Opus 4.6: 5W

Claude Opus 4.6 (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

48 tok/svs64 tok/s

Time to first token

420 msvs360 ms

Claude 3 Opus: 0WClaude Opus 4.6: 2W

Claude Opus 4.6 (3/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$75/1Mvs$25/1M

Input price

$15/1Mvs$5/1M

Context window

200kvs1M

Claude 3 Opus: 0WClaude Opus 4.6: 3W

Capability Matchup Radar

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Each spoke is a skill. Farther from the center is better (0–100th percentile). Tap any dot to inspect details.

Tap any node to inspect

Percentile 0–100

Dimensional AdvantageClaude Opus 4.6 6/6

Preference Elo

Claude Opus 4.6

326 pts advantage

Throughput Speed

Claude Opus 4.6

16 tok/s faster

Price Efficiency

Claude Opus 4.6

$50.00/1M cheaper

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

—

Elo

High is better

1,248

EloHigh is better

1,574+26%

Code Elo

High is better

—

Code EloHigh is better

1,570

LiveBench

High is better

46.2%

LiveBenchHigh is better

72%+56%

SWE-bench

High is better

38.4%

SWE-benchHigh is better

75.9%+98%

GPQA

High is better

50.4%

GPQAHigh is better

84.8%+68%

TTFT

Low is better

420 ms

TTFTLow is better

360 ms+17%

Speed

High is better

48 tok/s

SpeedHigh is better

64 tok/s+33%

In $

Low is better

$15/1M

In $Low is better

$5/1M+200%

Out $

Low is better

$75/1M

Out $Low is better

$25/1M+200%

Context

High is better

200k

ContextHigh is better

1M+400%

Interactive Simulator

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Simulate monthly production API costs based on published $/1M tokens.

Save up to 67% with Claude Opus 4.6

Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo

Quick Presets:

Token Ratio (In vs Out)70% In / 30% Out

RAG / Search (10% out)Coding / Chat (50% out)

Claude 3 Opus$1,650.00 / mo

In: $525.00Out: $1125.00

Claude Opus 4.6$550.00 / mo

In: $175.00Out: $375.00

Estimated Cost Delta

Claude Opus 4.6 is estimated to save $1,100.00/month ($13,200/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

1
Claude Opus 4.6:Pick Claude Opus 4.6 when repo-level coding accuracy is the constraint.
2
Claude Opus 4.6:Pick Claude Opus 4.6 when time-to-first-token matters more than peak Elo.
3
Claude Opus 4.6:Pick Claude Opus 4.6 for million-token RAG or long-document jobs.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsClaude Opus 4.6

Higher SWE-bench (75.9%).

High-volume chatClaude Opus 4.6

Lower output list price ($25/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIClaude Opus 4.6

Lower TTFT (360 ms).

Long-document RAGClaude Opus 4.6

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionClaude Opus 4.6

Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (Claude Opus 4.6).

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Claude Opus 4.6	Higher SWE-bench (75.9%).
High-volume chat	Claude Opus 4.6	Lower output list price ($25/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Claude Opus 4.6	Lower TTFT (360 ms).
Long-document RAG	Claude Opus 4.6	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Claude Opus 4.6	Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (Claude Opus 4.6).

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

View all news

launchMay 10, 2026

Claude Opus 4.6: the May follow-on that still shows up in old bookmarks

Slightly behind 4.5 on one official SWE-bench sweep; stronger long-horizon traces. We keep the row for old vs URLs.

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LIVE

Anthropic

Claude 3 Opus

Elo 1,248

LiveBench46.2%

SWE-bench38.4%

Speed48 tok/s

Output cost$75/1M

Anthropic

Claude Opus 4.6

Elo 1,574

LiveBench72%

SWE-bench75.9%

Speed64 tok/s

Output cost$25/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude 3 Opus or Claude Opus 4.6?: Claude Opus 4.6 has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,574). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.
Which is better at coding, Claude 3 Opus or Claude Opus 4.6?: Claude Opus 4.6 leads SWE-bench at 75.9% vs 38.4%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.
Which is cheaper to run in production?: Claude Opus 4.6 output tokens are $25/1M versus $75/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, Claude 3 Opus or Claude Opus 4.6?: Claude Opus 4.6 has the lower time-to-first-token (360 ms vs 420 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.
Which has the larger context window?: Claude Opus 4.6 accepts 1M tokens versus 200k.
Can I self-host either model?: Neither model is marked open-weights here. You are comparing hosted APIs.
Are these scores from CompareLLM’s own evals?: No. V1 aggregates public leaderboards (and optional first-party latency pings). Each cell names its source and date. Read /methodology.
What does preference Elo mean on this page?: Preference Elo is a crowd vote from LMArena / Arena. People see two hidden answers and pick the one they like more. The model that wins more often gets a higher Elo. That means people preferred it — not that it passed a school test. It is not SWE-bench, not accuracy, and not a number we invent. Claude 3 Opus and Claude Opus 4.6 Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All Claude 3 Opus matchups →|All Claude Opus 4.6 matchups →

Claude 3 Opus vs Claude Opus 4 (next opus)Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Opus 4.5 (previous opus)Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Opus 4.8 (next opus)Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Claude Opus 4.6 Claude Opus 5 vs Claude Opus 4.6 Claude Fable 5 vs Claude Opus 4.6

Claude 3 Opus vs Claude Opus 4.6 benchmark

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Claude 3 Opus (0)vsClaude Opus 4.6 (10)

Claude 3 Opus: 0W (0%)Overall: Claude Opus 4.6Claude Opus 4.6: 10W (100%)

← Claude 3 OpusClaude Opus 4.6 →

Claude Opus 4.6 (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy

Preference Elo

1,248vs1,574

Coding Elo

—vs1,570

SWE-bench

38.4%vs75.9%

LiveBench

46.2%vs72%

GPQA Diamond

50.4%vs84.8%

Claude 3 Opus: 0WClaude Opus 4.6: 5W

Claude Opus 4.6 (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

48 tok/svs64 tok/s

Time to first token

420 msvs360 ms

Claude 3 Opus: 0WClaude Opus 4.6: 2W

Claude Opus 4.6 (3/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$75/1Mvs$25/1M

Input price

$15/1Mvs$5/1M

Context window

200kvs1M

Claude 3 Opus: 0WClaude Opus 4.6: 3W

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsClaude Opus 4.6

Higher SWE-bench (75.9%).

High-volume chatClaude Opus 4.6

Lower output list price ($25/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIClaude Opus 4.6

Lower TTFT (360 ms).

Long-document RAGClaude Opus 4.6

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionClaude Opus 4.6

Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (Claude Opus 4.6).

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Claude Opus 4.6	Higher SWE-bench (75.9%).
High-volume chat	Claude Opus 4.6	Lower output list price ($25/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Claude Opus 4.6	Lower TTFT (360 ms).
Long-document RAG	Claude Opus 4.6	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Claude Opus 4.6	Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (Claude Opus 4.6).

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude 3 Opus or Claude Opus 4.6?

Claude Opus 4.6 has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,574). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.

Which is better at coding, Claude 3 Opus or Claude Opus 4.6?

Claude Opus 4.6 leads SWE-bench at 75.9% vs 38.4%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.

Which is cheaper to run in production?

Claude Opus 4.6 output tokens are $25/1M versus $75/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.

Which is faster, Claude 3 Opus or Claude Opus 4.6?

Claude Opus 4.6 has the lower time-to-first-token (360 ms vs 420 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.

Which has the larger context window?

Claude Opus 4.6 accepts 1M tokens versus 200k.

Can I self-host either model?

Neither model is marked open-weights here. You are comparing hosted APIs.

Are these scores from CompareLLM’s own evals?

No. V1 aggregates public leaderboards (and optional first-party latency pings). Each cell names its source and date. Read /methodology.

What does preference Elo mean on this page?

Preference Elo is a crowd vote from LMArena / Arena. People see two hidden answers and pick the one they like more. The model that wins more often gets a higher Elo. That means people preferred it — not that it passed a school test. It is not SWE-bench, not accuracy, and not a number we invent. Claude 3 Opus and Claude Opus 4.6 Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

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Interactive Comparison Diagram

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Intelligence & Reasoning

Speed & Latency

Pricing & Capacity

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Claude Opus 4.6

Claude Opus 4.6

Claude Opus 4.6

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Claude Opus 4.6: the May follow-on that still shows up in old bookmarks

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CompareLLM Matrix

Claude 3 Opus

Claude Opus 4.6

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

Swap or Add Any Model to this Matchup

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Intelligence & Reasoning

Speed & Latency

Pricing & Capacity

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Claude Opus 4.6

Claude Opus 4.6

Claude Opus 4.6

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Claude Opus 4.6: the May follow-on that still shows up in old bookmarks

Cast Your Matchup Vote

Community Discussions (0)

Share card

CompareLLM Matrix

Claude 3 Opus

Claude Opus 4.6

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons