Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 16, 2026

Claude Opus 4.8 vs GPT-4.5 Orion benchmark

Name: Claude Opus 4.8 vs GPT-4.5 Orion AI benchmark comparison
Creator: CompareLLM
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This page compares Claude Opus 4.8 (Anthropic) and GPT-4.5 Orion (OpenAI) using the latest snapshots we have as of Aug 16, 2026. On preference Elo, Claude Opus 4.8 is ahead by 58 points (1,598 vs 1,540; seed-bootstrap (Aug 16, 2026)). On SWE-bench coding, Claude Opus 4.8 resolves 78.4% versus 71% (seed-bootstrap (Aug 16, 2026)). Claude Opus 4.8 streams faster (66 tok/s) while Claude Opus 4.8 is the cheaper output token ($25/1M). Claude Opus 4.8 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 Opus 4.8

Prior Opus generation still billed at $5/$25. Kept as a compare baseline against Opus 5.

Elo 1,598$25/1M out

OpenAI

GPT-4.5 Orion

OpenAI largest dense non-reasoning model with expansive world knowledge and reduced hallucinations.

Elo 1,540$150/1M out

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Model A

Model B

Quick vs:vs Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Claude 3.7 Sonnet

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Claude Opus 4.8 (10)vsGPT-4.5 Orion (0)

Claude Opus 4.8: 10W (100%)Overall: Claude Opus 4.8GPT-4.5 Orion: 0W (0%)

← Claude Opus 4.8GPT-4.5 Orion →

Claude Opus 4.8 (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

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

Preference Elo

1,598vs1,540

Coding Elo

1,604vs1,520

SWE-bench

78.4%vs71%

LiveBench

73.6%vs68.5%

GPQA Diamond

86.2%vs84%

Claude Opus 4.8: 5WGPT-4.5 Orion: 0W

Claude Opus 4.8 (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

66 tok/svs60 tok/s

Time to first token

330 msvs350 ms

Claude Opus 4.8: 2WGPT-4.5 Orion: 0W

Claude Opus 4.8 (3/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$25/1Mvs$150/1M

Input price

$5/1Mvs$75/1M

Context window

1Mvs128k

Claude Opus 4.8: 3WGPT-4.5 Orion: 0W

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 4.8 6/6

Preference Elo

Claude Opus 4.8

58 pts advantage

Throughput Speed

Claude Opus 4.8

6 tok/s faster

Price Efficiency

Claude Opus 4.8

$125.00/1M cheaper

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

—

Elo

High is better

+4%1,598

EloHigh is better

1,540

Code Elo

High is better

+6%1,604

Code EloHigh is better

1,520

LiveBench

High is better

+7%73.6%

LiveBenchHigh is better

68.5%

SWE-bench

High is better

+10%78.4%

SWE-benchHigh is better

71%

GPQA

High is better

+3%86.2%

GPQAHigh is better

84%

TTFT

Low is better

+6%330 ms

TTFTLow is better

350 ms

Speed

High is better

+10%66 tok/s

SpeedHigh is better

60 tok/s

In $

Low is better

+1400%$5/1M

In $Low is better

$75/1M

Out $

Low is better

+500%$25/1M

Out $Low is better

$150/1M

Context

High is better

+681%1M

ContextHigh is better

128k

Interactive Simulator

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

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

Save up to 89% with Claude Opus 4.8

Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo

Quick Presets:

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

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

Claude Opus 4.8$550.00 / mo

In: $175.00Out: $375.00

GPT-4.5 Orion$4,875.00 / mo

In: $2625.00Out: $2250.00

Estimated Cost Delta

Claude Opus 4.8 is estimated to save $4,325.00/month ($51,900/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

1
Claude Opus 4.8:Pick Claude Opus 4.8 when repo-level coding accuracy is the constraint.
2
Claude Opus 4.8:Pick Claude Opus 4.8 when time-to-first-token matters more than peak Elo.
3
Claude Opus 4.8:Pick Claude Opus 4.8 for million-token RAG or long-document jobs.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsClaude Opus 4.8

Higher SWE-bench (78.4%).

High-volume chatClaude Opus 4.8

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

Voice / low-latency UIClaude Opus 4.8

Lower TTFT (330 ms).

Long-document RAGClaude Opus 4.8

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionClaude Opus 4.8

Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (Claude Opus 4.8).

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Claude Opus 4.8	Higher SWE-bench (78.4%).
High-volume chat	Claude Opus 4.8	Lower output list price ($25/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Claude Opus 4.8	Lower TTFT (330 ms).
Long-document RAG	Claude Opus 4.8	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Claude Opus 4.8	Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (Claude Opus 4.8).

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

View all news

launchJun 20, 2026

Keep Opus 4.8 on the board: a baseline, not a flagship

Opus 4.8 still bills $5/$25. We keep it so Opus 5 vs 4.8 is a real generation delta, not marketing.

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LIVE

Anthropic

Claude Opus 4.8

Elo 1,598

LiveBench73.6%

SWE-bench78.4%

Speed66 tok/s

Output cost$25/1M

OpenAI

GPT-4.5 Orion

Elo 1,540

LiveBench68.5%

SWE-bench71%

Speed60 tok/s

Output cost$150/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude Opus 4.8 or GPT-4.5 Orion?: Claude Opus 4.8 has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,598). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.
Which is better at coding, Claude Opus 4.8 or GPT-4.5 Orion?: Claude Opus 4.8 leads SWE-bench at 78.4% vs 71%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.
Which is cheaper to run in production?: Claude Opus 4.8 output tokens are $25/1M versus $150/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, Claude Opus 4.8 or GPT-4.5 Orion?: Claude Opus 4.8 has the lower time-to-first-token (330 ms vs 350 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.
Which has the larger context window?: Claude Opus 4.8 accepts 1M tokens versus 128k.
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 Opus 4.8 and GPT-4.5 Orion Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All Claude Opus 4.8 matchups →|All GPT-4.5 Orion matchups →

Claude Opus 4.8 vs Claude Opus 4.6 (previous opus)Claude Opus 4.8 vs Claude Opus 5 (next opus)GPT-4.5 Orion vs OpenAI: o1 (previous gpt-flagship)GPT-4.5 Orion vs GPT-5 (next gpt-flagship)GPT-5.6 Sol vs Claude Opus 4.8 Claude Fable 5 vs Claude Opus 4.8

Claude Opus 4.8 vs GPT-4.5 Orion benchmark

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Claude Opus 4.8 (10)vsGPT-4.5 Orion (0)

Claude Opus 4.8: 10W (100%)Overall: Claude Opus 4.8GPT-4.5 Orion: 0W (0%)

← Claude Opus 4.8GPT-4.5 Orion →

Claude Opus 4.8 (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

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

Preference Elo

1,598vs1,540

Coding Elo

1,604vs1,520

SWE-bench

78.4%vs71%

LiveBench

73.6%vs68.5%

GPQA Diamond

86.2%vs84%

Claude Opus 4.8: 5WGPT-4.5 Orion: 0W

Claude Opus 4.8 (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

66 tok/svs60 tok/s

Time to first token

330 msvs350 ms

Claude Opus 4.8: 2WGPT-4.5 Orion: 0W

Claude Opus 4.8 (3/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$25/1Mvs$150/1M

Input price

$5/1Mvs$75/1M

Context window

1Mvs128k

Claude Opus 4.8: 3WGPT-4.5 Orion: 0W

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsClaude Opus 4.8

Higher SWE-bench (78.4%).

High-volume chatClaude Opus 4.8

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

Voice / low-latency UIClaude Opus 4.8

Lower TTFT (330 ms).

Long-document RAGClaude Opus 4.8

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionClaude Opus 4.8

Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (Claude Opus 4.8).

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Claude Opus 4.8	Higher SWE-bench (78.4%).
High-volume chat	Claude Opus 4.8	Lower output list price ($25/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Claude Opus 4.8	Lower TTFT (330 ms).
Long-document RAG	Claude Opus 4.8	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Claude Opus 4.8	Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (Claude Opus 4.8).

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude Opus 4.8 or GPT-4.5 Orion?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,598). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.

Which is better at coding, Claude Opus 4.8 or GPT-4.5 Orion?

Claude Opus 4.8 leads SWE-bench at 78.4% vs 71%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.

Which is cheaper to run in production?

Claude Opus 4.8 output tokens are $25/1M versus $150/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.

Which is faster, Claude Opus 4.8 or GPT-4.5 Orion?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the lower time-to-first-token (330 ms vs 350 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.

Which has the larger context window?

Claude Opus 4.8 accepts 1M tokens versus 128k.

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 Opus 4.8 and GPT-4.5 Orion Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

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 4.8

Claude Opus 4.8

Claude Opus 4.8

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Keep Opus 4.8 on the board: a baseline, not a flagship

Cast Your Matchup Vote

Community Discussions (0)

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CompareLLM Matrix

Claude Opus 4.8

GPT-4.5 Orion

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 4.8

Claude Opus 4.8

Claude Opus 4.8

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Keep Opus 4.8 on the board: a baseline, not a flagship

Cast Your Matchup Vote

Community Discussions (0)

Share card

CompareLLM Matrix

Claude Opus 4.8

GPT-4.5 Orion

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons