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BenchLM

Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.8 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 28 shared benchmark results across 6 categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.

85/100
Margin
7.0pts
← winning
78/100
3 category wins1 category wins

Verified leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.8 #3; DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max) #9

Evidence parity. Claude Opus 4.8 and DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max) share 28 comparable benchmark results. 4 of 8 categories are comparable. 25 results are unique to Claude Opus 4.8; 14 to DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max).

Updated July 12, 2026
Shared results
28
Claude Opus 4.8 only
25
DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max) only
14
Comparable categories
4 / 8

Pick Claude Opus 4.8 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max) only becomes the better choice if mathematics is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 28 shared benchmark results across 6 evidence categories; 4 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.

Why this result

Claude Opus 4.8 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 85 to 78. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Claude Opus 4.8's sharpest advantage is in agentic, where it averages 80.3 against 74.5. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HLE, 57.9% to 37.7%. DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max) does hit back in mathematics, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Claude Opus 4.8 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $5.00 input / $25.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $1.74 input / $3.48 output per 1M tokens for DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max). That is roughly 7.2x on output cost alone.

Category breakdown

Exact category averages are shown below. Not measured means BenchLM does not have enough sourced public coverage for that model and category.

Category scores and score margins for Claude Opus 4.8 and DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)
CategoryClaude Opus 4.8ΔDeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)
MathClaude Opus 4.853.9Margin→ 41.3DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)95.2
AgenticClaude Opus 4.880.3Margin← 5.8DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)74.5
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.862.7Margin← 2.3DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)60.4
CodingClaude Opus 4.876.4Margin← 0.5DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)75.9
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.877.0MarginNo overlapDeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)Not measured

Decisive benchmark drivers

The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.

More
A · Claude Opus 4.8B · DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)

  1. HLE

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 57.9%B 37.7%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 20.2
    HLE: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 57.9%; DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max) scored 37.7%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

  2. SWE-bench Pro

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 69.2%B 55.4%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 13.8
    SWE-bench Pro: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 69.2%; DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max) scored 55.4%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

  3. SWE-bench Verified

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 88.6%B 80.6%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 8
    SWE-bench Verified: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 88.6%; DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max) scored 80.6%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

  4. Terminal-Bench 2.0

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 74.6%B 67.9%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 6.7
    Terminal-Bench 2.0: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 74.6%; DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max) scored 67.9%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

  5. GPQA

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 93.6%B 90.1%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 3.5
    GPQA: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 93.6%; DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max) scored 90.1%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.

MetricClaude Opus 4.8DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)Comparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Opus 4.8$5 input / $25 outputDeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)$1.74 input / $3.48 outputDeepSeek V4 Pro (Max) has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Opus 4.8Not availableDeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)Not availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Opus 4.8Not availableDeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)Not availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Opus 4.81MDeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)1MListed context windows are equal.

Benchmark Deep Dive

AgenticClaude Opus 4.8 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)Result
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 74.6%67.9%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
BrowseCompSource 84.3%83.4%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
DeepSearchQASource 93.1%—Not comparable
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 83.4%—Not comparable
Finance Agent v2Source 53.9%—Not comparable
GDPval-AASource 16001307Claude Opus 4.8 leads
MCP AtlasSource 82.2%73.6%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
ToolathlonSource 59.9%51.8%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
Gert LabsSource 72.97%—Not comparable
AA Agentic IndexSource 47.2%36.4%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
Tau2-TelecomSource 94.4%96.2%DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max) leads
GDPval-AASource 55.0%40.4%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
ResearchClawBenchSource 21.1%—Not comparable
OSWorld 2.0Source 20.6%—Not comparable
AA BriefcaseSource 1354—Not comparable
AA AutomationBenchSource 48.5%—Not comparable
AA EnterpriseOps-GymSource 44.0%—Not comparable
AA Harvey LABSource 7.5%—Not comparable
AA Tau3 BankingSource 27.6%—Not comparable
HLE w/ toolsSource —48.2%Not comparable
APEX-Agents-AASource —24.3%Not comparable
CodingClaude Opus 4.8 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)Result
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 88.6%80.6%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
SWE-bench ProSource 69.2%55.4%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
SWE MultilingualSource 84.4%76.2%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
SWE MultimodalSource 38.4%—Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 74.6%67.9%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
cursorBench31Source 58.4%—Not comparable
cursorBench32Source 62.3%—Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource 74.3%59.4%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
Terminal-Bench HardSource 58.3%46.2%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-SciCodeSource 53.5%50.0%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
FrontierCodeSource 46.5%—Not comparable
AA Terminal-Bench 2.1Source 84.6%—Not comparable
LiveCodeBenchSource —93.5%Not comparable
CodeforcesSource —3206.0Not comparable
Vibe Code BenchSource —49.93%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)Result
AA-LCRSource 67.7%66.3%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
CritPtSource 20.9%12.9%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
MRCR 1MSource —83.5%Not comparable
CorpusQA 1MSource —62.0%Not comparable
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.8 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)Result
GPQASource 93.6%90.1%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
GPQA-DSource 93.6%90.1%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
HLESource 57.9%37.7%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
HLE w/o toolsSource 49.8%—Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 55.7%44.3%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 92.0%88.8%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-HLESource 45.7%35.9%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource 27.4%-10.0%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 46.6%43.3%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 35.9%94.0%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
MMLU-ProSource —87.5%Not comparable
SimpleQASource —57.9%Not comparable
Chinese-SimpleQASource —84.4%Not comparable
MathDeepSeek V4 Pro (Max) wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)Result
USAMO 2026Source 96.7%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source 47.241%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source 31.250%—Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2026Source —95.2%Not comparable
IMOAnswerBenchSource —89.8%Not comparable
ApexSource —38.3%Not comparable
Apex ShortlistSource —90.2%Not comparable
Multilingual
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)Result
INCLUDESource 87.6%—Not comparable
Multimodal
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)Result
OfficeQA ProSource 66.2%—Not comparable
ScreenSpot ProSource 87.9%—Not comparable
CharXivSource 89.9%—Not comparable
CharXiv w/o toolsSource 80.5%—Not comparable
Design Arena WebsiteSource 12811277Claude Opus 4.8 leads
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)Result
AA-IFBenchSource 62.2%76.5%DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max) leads
Frequently Asked Questions (5)

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.8 or DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)?

Claude Opus 4.8 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 85 to 78. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HLE, where the scores are 57.9% and 37.7%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Opus 4.8 or DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 62.7 versus 60.4. Inside this category, AA-Omniscience Hallucination Rate is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.8 or DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 76.4 versus 75.9. Inside this category, AA Coding Index is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Claude Opus 4.8 or DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)?

DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max) has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 95.2 versus 53.9. Claude Opus 4.8 stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Claude Opus 4.8 or DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max)?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 80.3 versus 74.5. Inside this category, GDPval-AA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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