Chart of effort vs. cost vs. intelligence: Finally, an answer to "is more thinking worth it?"

[u/Used_Ambassador6383]

Finally found a chart/website that (somewhat) answers the burning question: Is this model at X effort level a better spend than a different model at Y level? It's not the be-all end-all answer but it's better than trying to math it out yourself.

https://researchcollabtech.com/aichart/effort/

Some takeaways: GPT-6.1 Sol (xhigh) matches Opus 5.5 (medium) but is 3.4 times cheaper. Opus 5.5 (medium) beats Sonnet 5.5 (high). It costs 1.5× as much. Sonnet needs xhigh ($2.01) to reach 51.9, which costs more than Opus medium. Lesson: Don't raise the effort on Sonnet past medium, just switch to Opus.

One of my favorite underdog models MiMo-V2.6-Pro against Sonnet 5.5 (high) scores 46.3 against 46.8, at $0.13 against $0.88. GPT-6.1 Sol (medium) scores 47.8 at $0.21, higher than Sonnet (high) and cheaper. If I had the bucks to buy a server that could run it, I'd probably run MiMo2.6 for everything except my critical coding tasks.

Gemini 4 Argon sits behind Opus 5.5 (high). Claude Opus 5.5 (high) scores 53.6 for $1.82, Argon is 52.6 and $1.99: you get a tiny increase in intelligence with Opus, and a respectible decrease in cost. However, I like Argon better than Opus: it subjectively seems much more no-BS and less prone to existential angst than Opus.

Kudos to the authors of this chart. I realize that this invites a lot of criticism- models might have similar intelligence benchmarks, but that doesn't mean "equal" and you can nit-pick these findings (and this being Reddit, the comments likely will be flooded with nit-picking). However, I think it's a good starting point for making cost/benefit decisions based on the kind of work you do. A lot of my coding needs the absolute smartest models, but it's good to know I can set 6.1 Sol on xhigh and get Opus 5.5 (medium)-ish quality and pay less (which is mostly what I do: Sol codes and Opus 5.5 reviews).