Claude Opus 4.8 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro (0813)
Claude Opus 4.8 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro (0813)
Independent runs have rewritten this matchup, mostly into ties. Claude Opus 4.8's one clean, confirmed win is raw reasoning without tools (HLE 48.7 vs 41.0, both Artificial Analysis runs). DeepSeek V4 Pro posts a bigger SWE-bench Verified number (96.4 vs 88.6, both vals.ai) — but that benchmark is saturated (grade D here), and by our own methodology rankings on it are unreliable regardless of gap size. Everything else — terminal work, long-horizon coding, multi-tool chores, professional tasks, GPQA, LiveCodeBench — lands inside the noise band. The launch chart's drama mostly dissolves under independent measurement; what survives is a price gap: DeepSeek is roughly 7x cheaper per output token at parity.
Benchmark by benchmark
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | DeepSeek V4 Pro (0813) | Signal |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🧠 Reasoning(no tools) | 48.7independent | 41.0independent | Real gap |
| 🧠 Reasoning(with tools) | 57.9self-reported | 60.0self-reported | Unverified |
| 💻 Terminal ops | 78.9independent | 78.7independent | Tie |
| 🛠️ Long-horizon coding | 59.0independent | 62.7self-reported | Tie |
| 🧰 Multi-tool chores | 76.2independent | 74.1self-reported | Tie |
| 💼 Professional work | 27.0independent | 25.2self-reported | Tie |
| 🐛 Bug fixing | 88.6independent | 96.4independent | Tainted |
| 🔬 Expert science Q&A | 92.4independent | 92.4independent | Tie |
| ⌨️ Contest coding | 87.8independent | 87.5independent | Tie |
In plain English: Scores that use different tool setups aren’t directly comparable — see each row’s signal before reading the ranking.
Who should pick which
- High-volume or budget-constrained workloads → DeepSeek V4 Pro (0813) (measured parity at about 7x cheaper output tokens — the ties are the story: you rarely give up confirmed capability for the discount)
- Single-shot reasoning without tool access → Claude Opus 4.8 (the matchup's only clean independently-confirmed real gap: HLE no-tools 48.7 vs 41.0 (Artificial Analysis ran both))
- Repository-scale bug fixing → DeepSeek V4 Pro (0813) (96.4 vs 88.6 on vals.ai's identical harness — but flagged honestly: SWE-bench Verified is saturated (grade D), so treat this as weak evidence, and the price still favors DeepSeek anyway)
Pricing
| Input / 1M tokens | $5.00 | $0.66 |
| Output / 1M tokens | $25.00 | $1.98 |
FAQ
Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than DeepSeek V4 Pro (0813)?
Independent runs have rewritten this matchup, mostly into ties. Claude Opus 4.8's one clean, confirmed win is raw reasoning without tools (HLE 48.7 vs 41.0, both Artificial Analysis runs). DeepSeek V4 Pro posts a bigger SWE-bench Verified number (96.4 vs 88.6, both vals.ai) — but that benchmark is saturated (grade D here), and by our own methodology rankings on it are unreliable regardless of gap size. Everything else — terminal work, long-horizon coding, multi-tool chores, professional tasks, GPQA, LiveCodeBench — lands inside the noise band. The launch chart's drama mostly dissolves under independent measurement; what survives is a price gap: DeepSeek is roughly 7x cheaper per output token at parity.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 or DeepSeek V4 Pro (0813)?
DeepSeek V4 Pro (0813) costs less per output token ($1.98 vs $25.00 per 1M tokens, official listed rates).