Head-to-head · frontier vs frontier

Claude Opus 4.5 Max vs GPT-5.2 Turbo: which model should you choose?

We compared Claude Opus 4.5 Max and GPT-5.2 Turbo on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Claude Opus 4.5 Max has the stronger average benchmark score; GPT-5.2 Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.

Anthropic

Claude Opus 4.5 Max

Claude Opus 4.5 Max is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $20.90 per million input tokens and $106.51 per million output tokens, and averages 87.8 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input
$20.90 / 1M
Output
$106.51 / 1M
Context
1,000,000
Avg score
87.8
Open weights
No
Full Claude Opus 4.5 Max page
OpenAI

GPT-5.2 Turbo

GPT-5.2 Turbo is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $20.73 per million input tokens and $96.05 per million output tokens, and averages 87.4 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input
$20.73 / 1M
Output
$96.05 / 1M
Context
1,000,000
Avg score
87.4
Open weights
No
Full GPT-5.2 Turbo page

Specification comparison

SpecClaude Opus 4.5 MaxGPT-5.2 TurboEdge
Input price / 1M$20.90$20.73B
Output price / 1M$106.51$96.05B
Context window1,000,0001,000,000Tie
Max output16,3848,192A
Average score87.887.4A
Arena Elo1501.91500.3A
Open weightsNoNoTie

Benchmark comparison

Claude Opus 4.5 Max wins 7, GPT-5.2 Turbo wins 5, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5 MaxGPT-5.2 TurboGapWinner
MMLU-Pro89.587.32.2Claude Opus 4.5 Max
GPQA Diamond84.684.00.6Claude Opus 4.5 Max
SWE-bench Verified79.577.42.1Claude Opus 4.5 Max
HumanEval91.793.21.5GPT-5.2 Turbo
MATH-50094.292.71.5Claude Opus 4.5 Max
AIME 202589.386.72.6Claude Opus 4.5 Max
LiveCodeBench80.682.51.9GPT-5.2 Turbo
IFEval94.592.02.5Claude Opus 4.5 Max
TruthfulQA86.987.30.4GPT-5.2 Turbo
HellaSwag93.095.52.5GPT-5.2 Turbo
MMMU82.383.31.0GPT-5.2 Turbo
Arena Elo1501.91500.31.6Claude Opus 4.5 Max

Price analysis

On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Opus 4.5 Max costs about $42.30 per million tokens and GPT-5.2 Turbo costs about $39.56. GPT-5.2 Turbo is roughly 6% cheaper than Claude Opus 4.5 Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.

Both models list a 1,000,000-token context window. That is enough for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.

Verdict

Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Opus 4.5 Max wins 7, GPT-5.2 Turbo wins 5, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Claude Opus 4.5 Max leads GPT-5.2 Turbo by 0.4 points (87.8 versus 87.4).

The price picture favours GPT-5.2 Turbo. The context picture is effectively a tie. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.

If you need a single default, start with Claude Opus 4.5 Max for quality-sensitive work and GPT-5.2 Turbo for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.

Choose Claude Opus 4.5 Max if

  • You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
  • You need the larger 16,384-token output limit.

Choose GPT-5.2 Turbo if

  • Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.

FAQ

Is Claude Opus 4.5 Max better than GPT-5.2 Turbo?

On the index average, Claude Opus 4.5 Max leads GPT-5.2 Turbo by 0.4 points (87.8 versus 87.4). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Opus 4.5 Max wins 7 benchmarks, GPT-5.2 Turbo wins 5.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.5 Max or GPT-5.2 Turbo?

GPT-5.2 Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $39.56 per million tokens, versus $42.30 for Claude Opus 4.5 Max.

Which has the larger context window?

Both models list a 1,000,000-token context window.

Are these models open weights?

Claude Opus 4.5 Max is proprietary; GPT-5.2 Turbo is proprietary.

Which should I choose for production?

If you need a single default, start with Claude Opus 4.5 Max for quality-sensitive work and GPT-5.2 Turbo for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.

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