Head-to-head comparison across 2benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
Claude Opus 4.5
77
o1
58
Verified leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.5 #9 · o1 unranked
Pick Claude Opus 4.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. o1 only becomes the better choice if instruction following is the priority or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.
Knowledge
+9.5 difference
Inst. Following
+12.8 difference
Claude Opus 4.5
o1
$5 / $25
$15 / $60
46 t/s
98 t/s
1.01s
32.29s
200K
200K
Pick Claude Opus 4.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. o1 only becomes the better choice if instruction following is the priority or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.
Claude Opus 4.5 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 77 to 58. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
o1 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $15.00 input / $60.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $5.00 input / $25.00 output per 1M tokens for Claude Opus 4.5. That is roughly 2.4x on output cost alone. o1 is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude Opus 4.5 is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use.
Claude Opus 4.5 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 77 to 58. The biggest single separator in this matchup is GPQA, where the scores are 87% and 75.7%.
o1 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 75.7 versus 66.2. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
o1 has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 92.2 versus 79.4. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
For engineers, researchers, and the plain curious — a weekly brief on new models, ranking shifts, and pricing changes.
Free. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.