Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max vs Gemini 3 Pro Turbo: which model should you choose?
We compared Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max and Gemini 3 Pro Turbo on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max has the stronger average benchmark score; Gemini 3 Pro Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max is a frontier model from Anthropic. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $19.90 per million input tokens and $95.47 per million output tokens, and averages 87.2 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $19.90 / 1M
- Output
- $95.47 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 87.2
- Open weights
- No
Gemini 3 Pro Turbo
Gemini 3 Pro Turbo is a frontier model from Google DeepMind. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $19.62 per million input tokens and $89.91 per million output tokens, and averages 86.4 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $19.62 / 1M
- Output
- $89.91 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 86.4
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max | Gemini 3 Pro Turbo | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $19.90 | $19.62 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $95.47 | $89.91 | B |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 400,000 | A |
| Max output | 65,536 | 16,384 | A |
| Average score | 87.2 | 86.4 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1474.9 | 1494.9 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max wins 7, Gemini 3 Pro Turbo wins 5, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max | Gemini 3 Pro Turbo | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 86.1 | 85.6 | 0.5 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max |
| GPQA Diamond | 84.4 | 81.0 | 3.4 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 80.2 | 77.4 | 2.8 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max |
| HumanEval | 92.4 | 90.3 | 2.1 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max |
| MATH-500 | 92.8 | 92.4 | 0.4 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max |
| AIME 2025 | 85.4 | 82.8 | 2.6 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max |
| LiveCodeBench | 82.8 | 82.7 | 0.1 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max |
| IFEval | 92.9 | 93.4 | 0.5 | Gemini 3 Pro Turbo |
| TruthfulQA | 87.3 | 87.8 | 0.5 | Gemini 3 Pro Turbo |
| HellaSwag | 93.1 | 94.6 | 1.5 | Gemini 3 Pro Turbo |
| MMMU | 82.0 | 82.7 | 0.7 | Gemini 3 Pro Turbo |
| Arena Elo | 1474.9 | 1494.9 | 20.0 | Gemini 3 Pro Turbo |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max costs about $38.79 per million tokens and Gemini 3 Pro Turbo costs about $37.19. Gemini 3 Pro Turbo is roughly 4% cheaper than Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 400,000 for Gemini 3 Pro Turbo. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max wins 7, Gemini 3 Pro Turbo wins 5, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max leads Gemini 3 Pro Turbo by 0.8 points (87.2 versus 86.4).
The price picture favours Gemini 3 Pro Turbo. The context picture favours Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max. 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 Sonnet 4.5 Max for quality-sensitive work and Gemini 3 Pro Turbo for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 65,536-token output limit.
Choose Gemini 3 Pro Turbo if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
FAQ
Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max better than Gemini 3 Pro Turbo?
On the index average, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max leads Gemini 3 Pro Turbo by 0.8 points (87.2 versus 86.4). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max wins 7 benchmarks, Gemini 3 Pro Turbo wins 5.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max or Gemini 3 Pro Turbo?
Gemini 3 Pro Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $37.19 per million tokens, versus $38.79 for Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max.
Which has the larger context window?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Gemini 3 Pro Turbo has 400,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max is proprietary; Gemini 3 Pro Turbo is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Claude Sonnet 4.5 Max for quality-sensitive work and Gemini 3 Pro Turbo for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.