Grok 4.5 vs Claude Opus 4.8: Same Code, a Quarter of the Tokens?

Short summary

A head-to-head test of Grok 4.5 and Claude Opus 4.8 on three real Rust coding tasks found nearly interchangeable code output, but Grok used roughly a quarter of the tokens at a fraction of the cost. Opus edged ahead on a small fast bugfix and documentation thoroughness. The takeaway: match model to task and track cost-per-job rather than defaulting to the most powerful model.

• •Grok 4.5 matched Opus 4.8 on code quality while using ~4x fewer tokens across three tasks
• •Total cost: ~$1.00 for Grok vs ~$5.14 for Opus, aligning with xAI's efficiency claims
• •Caveats include Cursor blended counts, different tiers, and a promo discount on Grok pricing

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.