Frontier-model comparisons are easy to overstate because the answer changes with the benchmark, reasoning setting, provider endpoint, and price model. The available evidence supports a practical verdict: GPT-5.5 has the strongest aggregate ranking signal, Claude Opus 4.7 wins several hard reasoning and software-engineering rows, DeepSeek V4 is the standout on listed API cost, and Kimi K2.6 is promising but has less direct head-to-head coverage against GPT-5.5 and Claude Opus 4.7.[2][
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Quick verdict
| Priority | Best-supported pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Highest aggregate intelligence score | GPT-5.5 | Artificial Analysis lists GPT-5.5 xhigh at 60 and GPT-5.5 high at 59, ahead of Claude Opus 4.7 Adaptive Reasoning Max Effort at 57.[ |
| Shared current-generation reasoning and SWE rows | Mixed: Claude Opus 4.7 and GPT-5.5 | In VentureBeat’s shared table, Claude leads GPQA Diamond, HLE no-tools, SWE-Bench Pro, and MCP Atlas; GPT-5.5 leads Terminal-Bench 2.0 and base BrowseComp, while GPT-5.5 Pro leads HLE with tools and BrowseComp where that variant is shown.[ |
| Lowest listed flagship API cost | DeepSeek V4 | Mashable lists DeepSeek V4 at $1.74 per 1M input tokens and $3.48 per 1M output tokens, versus GPT-5.5 at $5/$30 and Claude Opus 4.7 at $5/$25.[ |
| Disclosed coding and competitive-programming metrics | DeepSeek V4 Pro | Together AI lists DeepSeek V4 Pro at 93.5% LiveCodeBench, Codeforces 3206, 80.6% SWE-Bench Verified, and 76.2% SWE-Bench Multilingual.[ |
| Kimi K2.6 evaluation | Promising, but not settled against GPT-5.5 and Opus 4.7 | Kimi K2.6 has useful coding and agentic numbers, but much of the available Kimi-focused evidence compares it with GPT-5.4 and Claude Opus 4.6 rather than GPT-5.5 and Claude Opus 4.7.[ |
What the aggregate rankings say
The clearest aggregate signal favors GPT-5.5. Artificial Analysis lists GPT-5.5 xhigh first with an Intelligence Index of 60 and GPT-5.5 high second at 59; Claude Opus 4.7 Adaptive Reasoning Max Effort is listed at 57.[2]
Kimi K2.6 appears below that GPT-5.5/Claude tier in the available composite snippets: OpenRouter shows Kimi K2.6 at 53.9 Intelligence, 47.1 Coding, and 66.0 Agentic, while LLMBase’s DeepSeek V4 Flash High vs Kimi K2.6 comparison lists Kimi at 53.9 Intelligence and 47.1 Coding.[3][
1] That same LLMBase comparison lists DeepSeek V4 Flash High at 44.9 Intelligence and 39.8 Coding, but that is the Flash variant, not DeepSeek V4 Pro or Pro-Max.[
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The important caveat: the available Artificial Analysis top-model snippet gives a clean ranking for GPT-5.5 and Claude Opus 4.7, but it does not provide a single complete four-way leaderboard row for GPT-5.5, Claude Opus 4.7, DeepSeek V4 Pro-Max, and Kimi K2.6 together.[2]
Shared benchmark results: Claude and GPT-5.5 split the wins
VentureBeat provides the most useful direct table across DeepSeek-V4-Pro-Max, GPT-5.5, GPT-5.5 Pro where shown, and Claude Opus 4.7.[16]
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V4-Pro-Max | GPT-5.5 | GPT-5.5 Pro, where shown | Claude Opus 4.7 | Best result in that source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 90.1% | 93.6% | — | 94.2% | Claude Opus 4.7[ |
| Humanity’s Last Exam, no tools | 37.7% | 41.4% | 43.1% | 46.9% | Claude Opus 4.7[ |
| Humanity’s Last Exam, with tools | 48.2% | 52.2% | 57.2% | 54.7% | GPT-5.5 Pro[ |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 67.9% | 82.7% | — | 69.4% | GPT-5.5[ |
| SWE-Bench Pro / SWE Pro | 55.4% | 58.6% | — | 64.3% | Claude Opus 4.7[ |
| BrowseComp | 83.4% | 84.4% | 90.1% | 79.3% | GPT-5.5 Pro[ |
| MCP Atlas / MCPAtlas Public | 73.6% | 75.3% | — | 79.1% | Claude Opus 4.7[ |
Read that table as a split decision, not a sweep. Claude Opus 4.7 has the stronger case on difficult reasoning and repository-style software engineering in this source, especially GPQA Diamond, HLE no-tools, SWE-Bench Pro, and MCP Atlas.[16] GPT-5.5 has the stronger base-model results on Terminal-Bench 2.0 and BrowseComp, and GPT-5.5 Pro is higher where VentureBeat includes it for HLE with tools and BrowseComp.[
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DeepSeek-V4-Pro-Max is competitive in the same table but does not beat the best GPT-5.5 or Claude Opus 4.7 result on those shared rows. Its closest shared row is BrowseComp, where it scores 83.4% versus GPT-5.5 at 84.4% and Claude Opus 4.7 at 79.3%.[16]
Coding benchmarks: Claude leads one shared SWE row, DeepSeek has the richest disclosed coding profile
Coding is where the comparison becomes especially benchmark-dependent. In VentureBeat’s shared SWE-Bench Pro row, Claude Opus 4.7 leads at 64.3%, followed by GPT-5.5 at 58.6% and DeepSeek-V4-Pro-Max at 55.4%.[16]
DeepSeek V4 Pro, however, has the most detailed disclosed coding profile in the available provider snippets. Together AI lists DeepSeek V4 Pro at 93.5% LiveCodeBench, Codeforces 3206, 80.6% SWE-Bench Verified, and 76.2% SWE-Bench Multilingual.[25] NVIDIA’s model card also breaks out DeepSeek V4 Flash and V4 Pro variants across benchmarks, including GPQA Diamond, HLE, LiveCodeBench, and Codeforces, with V4-Pro Max shown at 93.5 on LiveCodeBench and 3206 on Codeforces.[
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Kimi K2.6 also has meaningful coding evidence, but the comparisons are usually against slightly earlier flagship models. Lorka lists Kimi K2.6 at 58.6% on SWE-Bench Pro, 54.0% on HLE-Full with tools, 90.5% on GPQA-Diamond, and 79.4% on MMMU-Pro in a table comparing it with GPT-5.4, Claude Opus 4.6, and Gemini 3.1 Pro.[18] Verdent lists Kimi K2.6 at 80.2% on SWE-Bench Verified, 66.7% on Terminal-Bench 2.0, 54.0% on HLE with tools, and 89.6% on LiveCodeBench v6, while also noting that Opus 4.7 leads SWE-Bench Verified at 87.6%.[
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That means Kimi K2.6 should be taken seriously for coding and agentic workflows, but the available evidence is not enough to declare it ahead of GPT-5.5 or Claude Opus 4.7 overall.[18][
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Pricing: DeepSeek V4 is the clear cost outlier
If API cost matters, DeepSeek V4 has the strongest price argument in the available sources. Mashable lists DeepSeek V4 at $1.74 per 1M input tokens and $3.48 per 1M output tokens, compared with GPT-5.5 at $5 per 1M input tokens and $30 per 1M output tokens, and Claude Opus 4.7 at $5 per 1M input tokens and $25 per 1M output tokens.[15]
| Model or variant | Listed input price | Listed output price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.5 | $5 per 1M tokens | $30 per 1M tokens | Mashable lists a 1M context window for this comparison.[ |
| Claude Opus 4.7 | $5 per 1M tokens | $25 per 1M tokens | Mashable lists a 1M context window for this comparison.[ |
| DeepSeek V4 | $1.74 per 1M tokens | $3.48 per 1M tokens | Mashable lists a 1M context window for this comparison.[ |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | $0.14 per 1M tokens | $0.28 per 1M tokens | LLMBase lists a $0.18 blended price in its DeepSeek V4 Flash High vs Kimi K2.6 comparison.[ |
| Kimi K2.6 | $0.95 per 1M tokens | $4.00 per 1M tokens | LLMBase lists a $1.71 blended price in the same comparison.[ |
Do not assume every endpoint has the same context limit. Mashable lists 1M context windows for DeepSeek V4, GPT-5.5, and Claude Opus 4.7 in its pricing comparison, but an OpenRouter DeepSeek V4 Pro snippet lists 256K max tokens and 66K max output tokens.[15][
3] For production decisions, verify the exact provider, model variant, and reasoning mode you plan to call.
Model-by-model guidance
GPT-5.5: best aggregate signal, strong terminal and browsing rows
GPT-5.5 is the safest pick if your decision is driven by the available aggregate ranking. It holds the top two Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index positions in the provided snippet: 60 for GPT-5.5 xhigh and 59 for GPT-5.5 high.[2]
It also performs especially well on two shared task rows in VentureBeat’s table: 82.7% on Terminal-Bench 2.0 and 84.4% on BrowseComp for base GPT-5.5, with GPT-5.5 Pro shown at 90.1% on BrowseComp where that variant appears.[16]
Claude Opus 4.7: strongest on several hard reasoning and SWE rows
Claude Opus 4.7 is close behind GPT-5.5 on the aggregate ranking, with an Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index score of 57 for the Adaptive Reasoning Max Effort setting.[2] In VentureBeat’s shared table, it leads GPT-5.5 and DeepSeek-V4-Pro-Max on GPQA Diamond, HLE no-tools, SWE-Bench Pro, and MCP Atlas.[
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Anthropic’s launch material also highlights internal research-agent results, including a tied top overall score of 0.715 across six modules and a General Finance score of 0.813 versus 0.767 for Opus 4.6, but those are internal benchmark claims rather than a neutral public leaderboard.[17]
DeepSeek V4: strongest value case, with serious coding numbers
DeepSeek V4’s most obvious advantage is price. In Mashable’s comparison, its listed input and output prices are far below GPT-5.5 and Claude Opus 4.7: $1.74 input and $3.48 output per 1M tokens versus GPT-5.5 at $5/$30 and Claude Opus 4.7 at $5/$25.[15]
DeepSeek V4 Pro also has a strong disclosed coding profile, including 93.5% LiveCodeBench, Codeforces 3206, 80.6% SWE-Bench Verified, and 76.2% SWE-Bench Multilingual in Together AI’s listing.[25] The tradeoff is that DeepSeek-V4-Pro-Max trails the top GPT-5.5 or Claude Opus 4.7 result on the shared VentureBeat rows, even when it is close on BrowseComp.[
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Kimi K2.6: credible coding and agentic signals, but fewer direct current-gen comparisons
Kimi K2.6 is harder to place in a four-way ranking because the available Kimi-focused benchmark tables mostly compare it with GPT-5.4 and Claude Opus 4.6 rather than GPT-5.5 and Claude Opus 4.7.[18][
19] Still, the signals are not weak: OpenRouter lists Kimi K2.6 at 53.9 Intelligence, 47.1 Coding, and 66.0 Agentic, while Verdent lists 80.2% SWE-Bench Verified and 89.6% LiveCodeBench v6.[
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The right conclusion is not that Kimi K2.6 is outclassed; it is that the available direct evidence is thinner. If Kimi’s cost, deployment route, or agentic behavior fits your stack, it deserves evaluation, but the sources here do not support calling it the overall winner against GPT-5.5 or Claude Opus 4.7.[18][
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Caveats before choosing a model
- Variant names matter. DeepSeek V4 appears in the sources as V4, V4 Flash, V4 Pro, and DeepSeek-V4-Pro-Max, and the benchmark results differ by variant and reasoning setting.[
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- Kimi comparisons are less direct. The strongest Kimi K2.6 benchmark tables in the available evidence often compare it with GPT-5.4 and Claude Opus 4.6, not GPT-5.5 and Claude Opus 4.7.[
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- Humanity’s Last Exam no-tools is inconsistent across snippets. LLM Stats and VentureBeat report GPT-5.5 at 41.4% and Claude Opus 4.7 at 46.9%, while a Mashable GPT-vs-Claude snippet reports GPT-5.5 at 40.6% and Opus 4.7 at 31.2%.[
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- Internal benchmarks are useful but not the same as independent leaderboards. Anthropic’s Opus 4.7 launch material reports internal research-agent gains, but those results should be read differently from cross-provider public comparisons.[
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- Pricing and context limits are provider-specific. The same model family can appear with different context windows or token limits depending on endpoint and listing.[
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Bottom line
Pick GPT-5.5 if the available aggregate intelligence ranking is your top criterion.[2] Pick Claude Opus 4.7 if your workload resembles the shared hard reasoning and software-engineering rows where it leads, including GPQA Diamond, HLE no-tools, SWE-Bench Pro, and MCP Atlas.[
16] Pick DeepSeek V4 if price-performance is central and you can validate the exact V4 variant you plan to use; its listed API pricing is far lower than GPT-5.5 and Claude Opus 4.7, and DeepSeek V4 Pro has strong disclosed coding metrics.[
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25] Treat Kimi K2.6 as a credible coding and agentic candidate, but not as a proven overall winner against GPT-5.5 or Claude Opus 4.7 based on the available direct evidence.[
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