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Gemini 4 Carbon vs Claude Opus 5.5
Of the 4 public leaderboards that rate both, Gemini 4 Carbon scores higher on 2 and Claude Opus 5.5 on 2. On the ArtificialWatch Index, which takes the median of each model's percentile across the boards that score it, Gemini 4 Carbon is at 94.6 and Claude Opus 5.5 at 92.9 (out of 100). On each maker's API, Gemini 4 Carbon costs $2 / $10 per 1M tokens (input / output) and Claude Opus 5.5 $4 / $20.
Scores as published by each board; table composed November 10, 2026.
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Leaderboard by leaderboard
| Board | Gemini 4 Carbon | Claude Opus 5.5 | Higher |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena Elo (community votes) | 1,768 | 1,817.7 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LLM Stats LLM Stats Score · composite (0-100), their rendered top 15 | 57.5 | 58.9 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| Vals AI Vals Index accuracy % · weighted finance + coding tasks | 70.5 | 70.1 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Artificial Analysis intelligence index · measured runs only | 59.4 | 58.4 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
Raw scores are each board's own scale, so compare within a row, not across rows. Full table: the bench index.
For coding
On the ArtificialWatch coding index, Gemini 4 Carbon is at 91.8 (#2 of 47) and Claude Opus 5.5 at 89.8 (#3). Gemini 4 Carbon scores higher on 1 of the 2 coding boards that rate both and Claude Opus 5.5 on 1.
| Coding board | Gemini 4 Carbon | Claude Opus 5.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena · Coding | 1,563.4 | 1,542.2 |
| Vals Vibe Code Bench | 89.1 | 90.3 |
Gemini 4 Carbon at a glance
- Developer
- Status
- Live since November 10, 2026
- API price
- $2 input / $10 output per 1M tokens · Google, gemini-4-carbon
- Context window
- 1.05M tokens
Live — Nov 10 · GA on the Gemini API as gemini-4-carbon (Google's release notes, Nov 10) and in Google AI Studio, paid tier only, no free tier · introductory $2 / $10 per 1M through Nov 30, then $4 / $20 from Dec 1; cached input $0.10, then $0.20, implicit caching only · unified 1,048,576-token context; max output 65,536 by default, up to about 1M with long decode · text, image, video, audio and PDF in, text out · thinking levels low / medium / high, default medium; Google says Carbon spends more thinking tokens per turn than Argon at the same per-token price · Batch, Flex and Priority inference · Google calls it its strongest reasoning model, for agentic coding, multimodal knowledge work, scientific reasoning and cybersecurity defense · Gemini app: screenshots from @LuminaBench and @Mr_Salio show it on Ultra plans first, not confirmed by Google · AW's radar fired at 15:46 UTC · history: announced Oct 28 for cyber defenders and Fairwind partners, alert fired 18:58 UTC; Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v5.0 59.4 at high, first at the time (Oct 28); Google's own figures: SEC-bench Pro 88.2%, ExploitGym 54.8%, CWE-bench 71.0%; billing SKUs appeared on Google Cloud's SKU list Nov 10, read 08:55 UTC · 16:51 UTC: OpenRouter lists google/gemini-4-carbon at $2 / $10, 1,048,576 context, plus :batch at $1 / $5; Vertex AI's model docs still do not · CursorBench 4.0 (cursor.com/cursorbench, read 16:51 UTC): #1 at 60.4% on high ($9.22 per task) and 60.1% on medium ($8.49), against Fable 5.2 max 60.0% ($32.79) and Opus 5.5 max 57.8% ($13.43); Argon high 52.9% · SimpleBench (read 18:50 UTC Nov 10): 92.6%, #2 behind Fable 5.2 at 94.9%; Argon 91.7%.
Gemini 4 Carbon tops CursorBench 4.0 at 60.4%, edging Claude Fable 5.2 at less than a third of the cost per task
2026-11-10 · Gemini 4 Carbon is #1 on CursorBench 4.0, Cursor's coding-agent benchmark, at 60.4% on its high thinking setting, hours after Google made it generally available. That edges out Claude Fable 5.2 at its max setting, 60.0%, at less than a third of the cost per task by Cursor's figures.
Gemini 4 Carbon is live on the Gemini API at $2 / $10 per 1M tokens until November 30, then $4 / $20
2026-11-10 · Google made Gemini 4 Carbon generally available on the Gemini API on November 10 as gemini-4-carbon, at an introductory $2 per 1M input tokens and $10 per 1M output tokens through November 30. ArtificialWatch's radar fired at 15:46 UTC.
Claude Opus 5.5 at a glance
- Developer
- Anthropic
- Status
- Live since September 22, 2026
- API price
- $4 input / $20 output per 1M tokens · Anthropic, claude-opus-5-5
- Context window
- 1M tokens
Live — Sep 22 · $4/$20 per MTok, down from Opus 5 at $5/$25 · 1M ctx / 128K out · adaptive thinking always on, default effort medium · cache reads 5% of base input · Anthropic now says start here for most workloads, and Opus 5 is legacy · fast mode (speed: 'fast', up to 2.5x the output tokens per second by Anthropic's figure) at $8 / $40 per MTok, double standard, left research preview Oct 15 with no waitlist, access request or beta header; on the Claude API and on Claude in Microsoft Foundry (Azure-hosted), not on Bedrock, Google Cloud, Claude Platform on AWS, the Batch API or Priority Tier; @ClaudeDevs says Google Cloud is coming soon (Anthropic's fast mode docs, read Oct 16).
AI models go live a median of 4 months after their knowledge ends: Claude Opus 5.5 knows up to June 2026, Gemini 4 Argon only to March
2026-11-06 · Of the 22 live AI models whose labs publish a knowledge cutoff, the median went live 4 months after its training data ends, by ArtificialWatch's count. The latest published cutoff we found is June 2026, for Anthropic's four current Claude models and OpenAI's GPT-6.1 Terra.
SemiAnalysis launches GDPx: Opus 5.5 leads at 12%, Gemini 4 Carbon close behind
2026-11-02 · SemiAnalysis released GDPx on November 2, a new agentic benchmark of 206 tasks across 11 domains, and the best model it tested scores 12%. Claude Opus 5.5 leads at 12.0, Gemini 4 Carbon is second at 10.9 and GPT-6 Astra third at 9.6. We read the leaderboard directly at gdpx.semianalysis.com.
Gemini 4 Carbon vs Claude Opus 5.5: quick answers
Which is better, Gemini 4 Carbon or Claude Opus 5.5?
It depends on what you measure. Of the 4 public leaderboards that rate both, Gemini 4 Carbon scores higher on 2 and Claude Opus 5.5 on 2. Gemini 4 Carbon's widest lead is on Artificial Analysis; Claude Opus 5.5's widest lead is on LLM Stats. On the ArtificialWatch Index, which takes the median of each model's percentile across the boards that score it, Gemini 4 Carbon is at 94.6 and Claude Opus 5.5 at 92.9 (out of 100).
Which is newer, Gemini 4 Carbon or Claude Opus 5.5?
Gemini 4 Carbon. It went live on November 10, 2026, 49 days after Claude Opus 5.5 (September 22, 2026).
Which is cheaper, Gemini 4 Carbon or Claude Opus 5.5?
Gemini 4 Carbon is cheaper on both input and output. On each vendor's own API, Gemini 4 Carbon is $2 input / $10 output per million tokens and Claude Opus 5.5 is $4 input / $20 output per million tokens. Prices as published in the models.dev catalog, as of 2026-11-11.
Which has the bigger context window, Gemini 4 Carbon or Claude Opus 5.5?
Gemini 4 Carbon, at 1.05M tokens against Claude Opus 5.5's 1M, as each vendor lists it.
How do Gemini 4 Carbon and Claude Opus 5.5 compare for coding?
On the ArtificialWatch coding index, Gemini 4 Carbon is at 91.8 (#2 of 47) and Claude Opus 5.5 at 89.8 (#3). Gemini 4 Carbon scores higher on 1 of the 2 coding boards that rate both and Claude Opus 5.5 on 1.
Who makes Gemini 4 Carbon and Claude Opus 5.5?
Gemini 4 Carbon is from Google; Claude Opus 5.5 is from Anthropic.
Where do these numbers come from?
Each score is the leaderboard's own published figure, read by ArtificialWatch (table composed November 10, 2026). Boards measure different things, so raw scores are only comparable within a row.
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