Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Hy3 Preview

Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Hy3 Preview only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you need the larger 256K context window.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 83 to 62. 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 46.7. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HLE, 49% to 25.5%.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $3.00 input / $15.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Hy3 Preview. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. Hy3 Preview is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude Sonnet 4.6 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. Hy3 Preview gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 200K for Claude Sonnet 4.6.