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Grok 4.6 vs Claude Opus 5
Claude Opus 5 scores higher than Grok 4.6 on all 5 public leaderboards that rate both. On the ArtificialWatch Index, which takes the median of each model's percentile across the boards that score it, Grok 4.6 is at 60 and Claude Opus 5 at 85.9 (out of 100).
Scores as published by each board; table composed September 25, 2026.
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Leaderboard by leaderboard
| Board | Grok 4.6 | Claude Opus 5 | Higher |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena Elo (community votes) | 1,624.2 | 1,692.4 | Claude Opus 5 |
| LiveBench global average (0-100) | 78 | 80.1 | Claude Opus 5 |
| SimpleBench AVG@5 % (private set) | 75.9 | 80.6 | Claude Opus 5 |
| Vals AI Vals Index accuracy % · weighted finance + coding tasks | 59.2 | 67.2 | Claude Opus 5 |
| Artificial Analysis intelligence index · measured runs only | 44.3 | 50.8 | Claude Opus 5 |
Raw scores are each board's own scale, so compare within a row, not across rows. Full table: the bench index.
Grok 4.6 at a glance
- Developer
- xAI
- Status
- Live since August 12, 2026
- API price
- $2 input / $6 output per 1M tokens · xAI, grok-4.6
- Context window
- 500K tokens
Live — Aug 12 at $2/$6 per 1M, unchanged from Grok 4.5.
Claude Opus 5 at a glance
- Developer
- Anthropic
- Status
- Live since July 24, 2026
- API price
- $5 input / $25 output per 1M tokens · Anthropic, claude-opus-5
- Context window
- 1M tokens
Live — detected 16:51 UTC Jul 24, alert fired 61s later · superseded by Opus 5.5 on Sep 22 and moved to Anthropic's legacy list; still served at $5/$25, which is now MORE than its successor.
Claude Opus 5 is live — we detected it at 16:51 UTC and had alerts out 61 seconds later
2026-07-24 · Anthropic's Claude Opus 5 went live on the public API today. Our checkers saw the id appear at 16:51:33 UTC, confirmed it on the next 60-second sweep, and the alert blast went out at 16:52:34 — sixty-one seconds from first sighting to inbox.
Grok 4.6 vs Claude Opus 5: quick answers
Which is better, Grok 4.6 or Claude Opus 5?
It depends on what you measure. Claude Opus 5 scores higher than Grok 4.6 on all 5 public leaderboards that rate both. Claude Opus 5's widest lead is on Vals AI. On the ArtificialWatch Index, which takes the median of each model's percentile across the boards that score it, Grok 4.6 is at 60 and Claude Opus 5 at 85.9 (out of 100).
Which is newer, Grok 4.6 or Claude Opus 5?
Grok 4.6. It went live on August 12, 2026, 19 days after Claude Opus 5 (July 24, 2026).
Which is cheaper, Grok 4.6 or Claude Opus 5?
Grok 4.6 is cheaper on both input and output. On each vendor's own API, Grok 4.6 is $2 input / $6 output per million tokens and Claude Opus 5 is $5 input / $25 output per million tokens. Grok 4.6's rate rises for prompts over 200K tokens. Prices as published in the models.dev catalog, as of 2026-09-25.
Which has the bigger context window, Grok 4.6 or Claude Opus 5?
Claude Opus 5, at 1M tokens against Grok 4.6's 500K, as each vendor lists it.
Who makes Grok 4.6 and Claude Opus 5?
Grok 4.6 is from xAI; Claude Opus 5 is from Anthropic.
Where do these numbers come from?
Each score is the leaderboard's own published figure, read by ArtificialWatch (table composed September 25, 2026). Boards measure different things, so raw scores are only comparable within a row.
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Also: the bench index · API pricing · the wire