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Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.8 vs Grok Code Fast 1

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 13 shared benchmark results across 5 categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.

85/100
Margin
45.0pts
← winning
1 category wins0 category wins

Verified leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.8 #3; Grok Code Fast 1 unranked

Evidence parity. Claude Opus 4.8 and Grok Code Fast 1 share 13 comparable benchmark results. 1 of 8 categories are comparable. 40 results are unique to Claude Opus 4.8; 0 to Grok Code Fast 1.

Updated July 12, 2026
Shared results
13
Claude Opus 4.8 only
40
Grok Code Fast 1 only
0
Comparable categories
1 / 8

Pick Claude Opus 4.8 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Grok Code Fast 1 only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 13 shared benchmark results across 5 evidence categories; 1 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 40. 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 coding, where it averages 76.4 against 70.8. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Verified, 88.6% to 70.8%.

Claude Opus 4.8 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $5.00 input / $25.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.20 input / $1.50 output per 1M tokens for Grok Code Fast 1. That is roughly 16.7x on output cost alone. Claude Opus 4.8 is the reasoning model in the pair, while Grok Code Fast 1 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 4.8 gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 256K for Grok Code Fast 1.

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 Grok Code Fast 1
CategoryClaude Opus 4.8ΔGrok Code Fast 1
CodingClaude Opus 4.876.4Margin 5.6Grok Code Fast 170.8
AgenticClaude Opus 4.880.3MarginNo overlapGrok Code Fast 1Not measured
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.862.7MarginNo overlapGrok Code Fast 1Not measured
MathClaude Opus 4.853.9MarginNo overlapGrok Code Fast 1Not measured
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.877.0MarginNo overlapGrok Code Fast 1Not measured

Decisive benchmark drivers

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

More
A · Claude Opus 4.8B · Grok Code Fast 1
  1. SWE-bench Verified

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 88.6%B 70.8%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 17.8
    SWE-bench Verified: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 88.6%; Grok Code Fast 1 scored 70.8%. 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 4.8Grok Code Fast 1Comparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Opus 4.8$5 input / $25 outputGrok Code Fast 1$0.2 input / $1.5 outputGrok Code Fast 1 has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Opus 4.8Not availableGrok Code Fast 1172 tok/sA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Opus 4.8Not availableGrok Code Fast 12.81 sA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Opus 4.81MGrok Code Fast 1256KClaude Opus 4.8 lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

Agentic
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Grok Code Fast 1Result
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 74.6%Not comparable
BrowseCompSource 84.3%Not comparable
DeepSearchQASource 93.1%Not comparable
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 83.4%Not comparable
Finance Agent v2Source 53.9%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource 1600Not comparable
MCP AtlasSource 82.2%Not comparable
ToolathlonSource 59.9%Not comparable
Gert LabsSource 72.97%Not comparable
AA Agentic IndexSource 47.2%Not comparable
Tau2-TelecomSource 94.4%75.7%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
GDPval-AASource 55.0%Not comparable
ResearchClawBenchSource 21.1%Not comparable
OSWorld 2.0Source 20.6%Not comparable
AA BriefcaseSource 1354Not 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
CodingClaude Opus 4.8 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Grok Code Fast 1Result
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 88.6%70.8%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
SWE-bench ProSource 69.2%Not comparable
SWE MultilingualSource 84.4%Not comparable
SWE MultimodalSource 38.4%Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 74.6%Not comparable
cursorBench31Source 58.4%Not comparable
cursorBench32Source 62.3%Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource 74.3%Not comparable
Terminal-Bench HardSource 58.3%17.4%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-SciCodeSource 53.5%36.2%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
FrontierCodeSource 46.5%Not comparable
AA Terminal-Bench 2.1Source 84.6%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Grok Code Fast 1Result
AA-LCRSource 67.7%48.3%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
CritPtSource 20.9%0.0%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
Knowledge
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Grok Code Fast 1Result
GPQASource 93.6%Not comparable
GPQA-DSource 93.6%Not comparable
HLESource 57.9%Not comparable
HLE w/o toolsSource 49.8%Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 55.7%21.6%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 92.0%72.7%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-HLESource 45.7%7.5%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource 27.4%-36.0%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 46.6%23.8%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 35.9%78.5%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
Math
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Grok Code Fast 1Result
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
Multilingual
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Grok Code Fast 1Result
INCLUDESource 87.6%Not comparable
Multimodal
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Grok Code Fast 1Result
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 1281Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Grok Code Fast 1Result
AA-IFBenchSource 62.2%41.4%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
Frequently Asked Questions (2)

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.8 or Grok Code Fast 1?

Claude Opus 4.8 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 85 to 40. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 88.6% and 70.8%.

Which is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.8 or Grok Code Fast 1?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 76.4 versus 70.8. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench Hard is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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Last updated: July 12, 2026

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