Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GPT-6 Astra
Verdict
- GPT-6 Astra (max) leads on quality: 70.9 vs 60.4.
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 is stronger in human preference, instruction following, long context, multimodal.
- GPT-6 Astra (max) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, composite, knowledge, maths, reasoning.
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 is 3.3× cheaper ($6.00 vs $20.00 per 1M blended).
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 streams 1.6× faster (42 vs 27 tokens per second).
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | GPT-6 Astra (max) |
|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | 60.4 | 70.9 |
| Agents & tools score | 54.6 | 68.2 |
| Coding score | 57.1 | 78.6 |
| Composite score | 67.5 | 72.9 |
| Human preference score | 62.0 | – |
| Instruction following score | 56.9 | – |
| Knowledge score | 62.3 | 80.0 |
| Long context score | 66.6 | – |
| Maths score | 62.7 | 77.2 |
| Multimodal score | 60.6 | – |
| Reasoning score | 65.2 | 73.6 |
| Blended price $/M | $6.00 | $20.00 |
| Output speed | 42 tok/s | 27 tok/s |
| Time to first answer | 2.2 s | 337.3 s |
| Context window | 1M | 1.1M |
| GPQA Diamond | 87.4% | 95.8% |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 | – | 93.7% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | – | 97.6% |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 85.8% | 100.0% |
| SWE-bench Verified (Epoch) | 75.2% | – |
| SimpleQA Verified | – | 75.6% |
| Terminal-Bench | 53.4% | 58.2% |
| SciCode | – | 56.5% |
| FrontierCode | 24.3% | 53.3% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 152.3 | – |
| LMArena Text | 1472 | – |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1504 | – |
| LMArena Coding | 1528 | – |
| LMArena WebDev | 1521 | 1796 |
| LMArena Vision | 1282 | – |
| LMArena Agent | -1 | 12.5 |
| LiveBench | – | 82.2% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | – | 92.7% |
| LiveBench Coding | – | 80.4% |
| LiveBench Agentic Coding | – | 57.3% |
| LiveBench Mathematics | – | 96.8% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | – | 83.0% |
| LiveBench Language | – | 89.4% |
| AA Intelligence Index | 30.4 | – |
| IFBench | 56.6% | – |
| AA-LCR | 80.0% | – |
| MMMU-Pro | 73.3% | – |
| AA-Omniscience | 12.2 | – |
| Terminal-Bench Hard | 53.0% | – |
| GPQA Diamond (AA) | 87.5% | – |
| Humanity's Last Exam (AA) | 33.6% | – |
| SciCode (AA) | 50.1% | – |
| τ²-Bench Telecom (AA) | 79.5% | – |
| AIME (Vals) | 92.3% | – |
| LiveCodeBench | 82.1% | – |
| MMLU-Pro | 87.3% | – |
| LegalBench | 82.1% | – |
| CorpFin | 65.3% | – |
| TaxEval | 77.1% | – |
| MedQA | 92.1% | – |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 57.3% | 87.3% |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 77.4% | – |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 85.6% | – |
| Vals Index | 50.6 | 66.6 |
| MCP Atlas | 69.5% | – |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1207 | – |
| ARC-AGI-1 | – | 97.5% |
| ARC-AGI-2 | – | 95.0% |
| ARC-AGI-3 | – | 98.6% |
Data as of 2026-09-10. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GPT-6 Astra: questions
- Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than GPT-6 Astra?
- GPT-6 Astra (max) leads on quality: 70.9 vs 60.4. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; GPT-6 Astra (max) is ahead overall as of 2026-09-10, but check the category scores for your use.
- Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than GPT-6 Astra for coding?
- GPT-6 Astra scores higher in coding (79 vs 57 on the category index, where 50 is average).
- Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than GPT-6 Astra for agentic tasks?
- GPT-6 Astra scores higher in agentic tasks (68 vs 55 on the category index, where 50 is average).
- Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-6 Astra?
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 is cheaper: $6.00 against $20.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token.
- Which is faster, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-6 Astra?
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 streams faster: 42 against 27 output tokens per second.
- Which has the larger context window?
- GPT-6 Astra accepts more context: 1.1M against 1M tokens.