Head-to-head comparison across 1benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
Claude Sonnet 4.6
84
DeepSeek V4 Flash Base
31
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. DeepSeek V4 Flash Base only becomes the better choice if you need the larger 1M context window.
Knowledge
+21.5 difference
Claude Sonnet 4.6
DeepSeek V4 Flash Base
$3 / $15
$null / $null
44 t/s
N/A
1.48s
N/A
200K
1M
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. DeepSeek V4 Flash Base only becomes the better choice if you need the larger 1M context window.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 84 to 31. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Claude Sonnet 4.6's sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 73.7 against 52.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SuperGPQA, 95% to 46.5%.
DeepSeek V4 Flash Base gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 200K for Claude Sonnet 4.6.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 84 to 31. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SuperGPQA, where the scores are 95% and 46.5%.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 73.7 versus 52.2. Inside this category, SuperGPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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