Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo vs Grok 4 Max: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo and Grok 4 Max on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Grok 4 Max has the stronger average benchmark score; Grok 4 Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo
Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 2,000,000-token context window, costs $19.57 per million input tokens and $106.60 per million output tokens, and averages 85.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $19.57 / 1M
- Output
- $106.60 / 1M
- Context
- 2,000,000
- Avg score
- 85.7
- Open weights
- No
Grok 4 Max
Grok 4 Max is a frontier model from xAI. It offers a 2,000,000-token context window, costs $19.70 per million input tokens and $98.29 per million output tokens, and averages 86.6 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $19.70 / 1M
- Output
- $98.29 / 1M
- Context
- 2,000,000
- Avg score
- 86.6
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo | Grok 4 Max | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $19.57 | $19.70 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $106.60 | $98.29 | B |
| Context window | 2,000,000 | 2,000,000 | Tie |
| Max output | 65,536 | 16,384 | A |
| Average score | 85.7 | 86.6 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1469.3 | 1491.4 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo wins 2, Grok 4 Max wins 10, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo | Grok 4 Max | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 85.8 | 87.8 | 2.0 | Grok 4 Max |
| GPQA Diamond | 81.9 | 82.0 | 0.1 | Grok 4 Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 75.0 | 74.3 | 0.7 | Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo |
| HumanEval | 89.8 | 93.4 | 3.6 | Grok 4 Max |
| MATH-500 | 93.2 | 94.6 | 1.4 | Grok 4 Max |
| AIME 2025 | 87.2 | 87.3 | 0.1 | Grok 4 Max |
| LiveCodeBench | 78.5 | 81.3 | 2.8 | Grok 4 Max |
| IFEval | 92.2 | 92.5 | 0.3 | Grok 4 Max |
| TruthfulQA | 85.5 | 85.8 | 0.3 | Grok 4 Max |
| HellaSwag | 92.8 | 94.1 | 1.3 | Grok 4 Max |
| MMMU | 80.5 | 80.0 | 0.5 | Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo |
| Arena Elo | 1469.3 | 1491.4 | 22.1 | Grok 4 Max |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo costs about $41.33 per million tokens and Grok 4 Max costs about $39.35. Grok 4 Max is roughly 5% cheaper than Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Both models list a 2,000,000-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 Turbo wins 2, Grok 4 Max wins 10, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Grok 4 Max leads Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo by 0.9 points (86.6 versus 85.7).
The price picture favours Grok 4 Max. 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 Grok 4 Max for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo if
- You need the larger 65,536-token output limit.
Choose Grok 4 Max if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
FAQ
Is Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo better than Grok 4 Max?
On the index average, Grok 4 Max leads Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo by 0.9 points (86.6 versus 85.7). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo wins 2 benchmarks, Grok 4 Max wins 10.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo or Grok 4 Max?
Grok 4 Max is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $39.35 per million tokens, versus $41.33 for Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo.
Which has the larger context window?
Both models list a 2,000,000-token context window.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Opus 4.5 Turbo is proprietary; Grok 4 Max is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Grok 4 Max for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.