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Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs o4-mini (high)

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 2 shared benchmark results across 1 category. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

65.07/100
Margin
15.1pts
← winning
49.98/100
1 category wins0 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Claude Sonnet 4.6 #32 (Supported); o4-mini (high) #118 (Estimated). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Claude Sonnet 4.6 and o4-mini (high) share 2 comparable benchmark results. 1 of 8 categories are comparable. 31 results are unique to Claude Sonnet 4.6; 0 to o4-mini (high).

Updated July 20, 2026
Shared results
2
Claude Sonnet 4.6 only
31
o4-mini (high) only
0
Comparable categories
1 / 8

Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. o4-mini (high) only becomes the better choice if you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 2 shared benchmark results across 1 evidence category; 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 Sonnet 4.6 is clearly ahead on the BenchAlign aggregate, 65.07 to 49.98. 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 mathematics, where it averages 26.4 against 20.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3), 32.400% to 24.828%.

o4-mini (high) 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.

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 Sonnet 4.6 and o4-mini (high)
CategoryClaude Sonnet 4.6Δo4-mini (high)
MathClaude Sonnet 4.626.4Margin← 6.2o4-mini (high)20.2
AgenticClaude Sonnet 4.665.2MarginNo overlapo4-mini (high)Not measured
CodingClaude Sonnet 4.669.1MarginNo overlapo4-mini (high)Not measured
KnowledgeClaude Sonnet 4.666.0MarginNo overlapo4-mini (high)Not measured
MultimodalClaude Sonnet 4.677.4MarginNo overlapo4-mini (high)Not measured

Decisive benchmark drivers

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

More
A · Claude Sonnet 4.6B · o4-mini (high)

  1. FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)

    Math
    Source ↗
    A 32.400%B 24.828%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 4.6Δ 7.6
    FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3): Claude Sonnet 4.6 scored 32.400%; o4-mini (high) scored 24.828%. Claude Sonnet 4.6 wins this benchmark.

  2. FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)

    Math
    Source ↗
    A 8.300%B 6.250%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 4.6Δ 2.1
    FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4): Claude Sonnet 4.6 scored 8.300%; o4-mini (high) scored 6.250%. Claude Sonnet 4.6 wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

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

MetricClaude Sonnet 4.6o4-mini (high)Comparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Sonnet 4.6$3 input / $15 outputo4-mini (high)Not availableA complete price comparison is not available.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Sonnet 4.644 tok/so4-mini (high)161 tok/so4-mini (high) has the higher measured throughput.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Sonnet 4.61.48 so4-mini (high)21.94 sClaude Sonnet 4.6 reaches the first token sooner.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Sonnet 4.6200Ko4-mini (high)200KListed context windows are equal.

Benchmark Deep Dive

Agentic
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6o4-mini (high)Result
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 59.1%—Not comparable
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 72.1%—Not comparable
Claw-EvalSource 67.8%—Not comparable
CyberGymSource 65.2%—Not comparable
τ²-bench resultsSource 79.5%—Not comparable
Gert LabsSource 62.92%—Not comparable
OSWorld 2.0Source 8.3%—Not comparable
JobBenchSource 36.9%—Not comparable
Coding
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6o4-mini (high)Result
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 79.6%—Not comparable
SWE-RebenchSource 60.7%—Not comparable
React Native EvalsSource 80.6%—Not comparable
Vibe Code BenchSource 51.48%—Not comparable
cursorBench31Source 48.8%—Not comparable
AA-SciCodeSource 46.9%—Not comparable
FrontierCode 1.1 MainSource 24.3%—Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6o4-mini (high)Result
AA-LCRSource 57.7%—Not comparable
CritPtSource 0.9%—Not comparable
Knowledge
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6o4-mini (high)Result
GPQASource 89.9%—Not comparable
SuperGPQASource 95%—Not comparable
MMLU-ProSource 79.2%—Not comparable
HLESource 49%—Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 35.9%—Not comparable
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 79.9%—Not comparable
AA-HLESource 13.2%—Not comparable
AA-Omniscience IndexSource -2.9%—Not comparable
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 38.0%—Not comparable
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 65.9%—Not comparable
MathClaude Sonnet 4.6 wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6o4-mini (high)Result
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source 32.400%24.828%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source 8.300%6.250%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
Multimodal
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6o4-mini (high)Result
CharXivSource 77.4%—Not comparable
AA-MMMU-ProSource 70.6%—Not comparable
Design Arena WebsiteSource 1317—Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6o4-mini (high)Result
AA-IFBenchSource 41.2%—Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (2)

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or o4-mini (high)?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 65.07 to 49.98. The biggest single separator in this matchup is FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3), where the scores are 32.400% and 24.828%.

Which is better for math, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or o4-mini (high)?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 26.4 versus 20.2. Inside this category, FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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