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BenchLM

Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.8 vs o3-mini

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 8 shared benchmark results across 3 categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.

85/100
Margin
32.0pts
← winning
o3-mini
OpenAI
53/100
1 category wins1 category wins

Verified leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.8 #3; o3-mini unranked

Evidence parity. Claude Opus 4.8 and o3-mini share 8 comparable benchmark results. 2 of 8 categories are comparable. 45 results are unique to Claude Opus 4.8; 3 to o3-mini.

Updated July 12, 2026
Shared results
8
Claude Opus 4.8 only
45
o3-mini only
3
Comparable categories
2 / 8

Pick Claude Opus 4.8 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. o3-mini only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 8 shared benchmark results across 3 evidence categories; 2 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 53. 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 49.3. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Verified, 88.6% to 49.3%. o3-mini does hit back in knowledge, 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 $1.10 input / $4.40 output per 1M tokens for o3-mini. That is roughly 5.7x on output cost alone. Claude Opus 4.8 gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 200K for o3-mini.

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 o3-mini
CategoryClaude Opus 4.8Δo3-mini
CodingClaude Opus 4.876.4Margin← 27.1o3-mini49.3
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.862.7Margin→ 14.5o3-mini77.2
AgenticClaude Opus 4.880.3MarginNo overlapo3-miniNot measured
MathClaude Opus 4.853.9MarginNo overlapo3-miniNot measured
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.877.0MarginNo overlapo3-miniNot measured
Inst. FollowingClaude Opus 4.8Not measuredMarginNo overlapo3-mini93.9

Decisive benchmark drivers

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

More
A · Claude Opus 4.8B · o3-mini

  1. SWE-bench Verified

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 88.6%B 49.3%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 39.3
    SWE-bench Verified: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 88.6%; o3-mini scored 49.3%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

  2. GPQA

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 93.6%B 77.2%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 16.4
    GPQA: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 93.6%; o3-mini scored 77.2%. 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 4.8o3-miniComparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Opus 4.8$5 input / $25 outputo3-mini$1.1 input / $4.4 outputo3-mini has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Opus 4.8Not availableo3-mini160 tok/sA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Opus 4.8Not availableo3-mini7.12 sA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Opus 4.81Mo3-mini200KClaude Opus 4.8 lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

Agentic
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8o3-miniResult
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 1600—Not 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%28.7%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 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
CodingClaude Opus 4.8 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8o3-miniResult
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 88.6%49.3%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%6.8%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-SciCodeSource 53.5%39.9%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
FrontierCodeSource 46.5%—Not comparable
AA Terminal-Bench 2.1Source 84.6%—Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8o3-miniResult
AA-LCRSource 67.7%—Not comparable
CritPtSource 20.9%—Not comparable
Knowledgeo3-mini wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8o3-miniResult
GPQASource 93.6%77.2%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
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%19.0%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 92.0%74.8%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-HLESource 45.7%8.7%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource 27.4%—Not comparable
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 46.6%—Not comparable
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 35.9%—Not comparable
MMLUSource —86.9%Not comparable
Math
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8o3-miniResult
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
AIME 2024Source —87.3%Not comparable
Multilingual
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8o3-miniResult
INCLUDESource 87.6%—Not comparable
Multimodal
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8o3-miniResult
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 1281—Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8o3-miniResult
AA-IFBenchSource 62.2%—Not comparable
IFEvalSource —93.9%Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (3)

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.8 or o3-mini?

Claude Opus 4.8 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 85 to 53. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 88.6% and 49.3%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Opus 4.8 or o3-mini?

o3-mini has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 77.2 versus 62.7. Inside this category, AA-HLE is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.8 or o3-mini?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 76.4 versus 49.3. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench Hard is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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