Claude Opus 5.5 Max vs Grok 4.7 Xhigh compared

Claude Opus 5.5 Max leads the intelligence index 59.1 to 35.5. Price per token, response speed and when to pick each.

Metric	Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)	Grok 4.7 (Xhigh)
Intelligence Index	59.1	35.5
Input price (per 1M tokens)	$4.00	$2.00
Output price (per 1M tokens)	$20.00	$6.00
Output speed (tokens/s)	95	65
Time to first token	10.8 min	43s
Release date	2026-09-22	2026-09-21

Metric

Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)

Grok 4.7 (Xhigh)

Intelligence Index

59.1

35.5

Input price (per 1M tokens)

$4.00

$2.00

Output price (per 1M tokens)

$20.00

$6.00

Output speed (tokens/s)

Time to first token

10.8 min

43s

Release date

2026-09-22

2026-09-21

Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) (Anthropic) and Grok 4.7 (Xhigh) (SpaceXAI) are not peers on the headline index, which makes the trade-offs the interesting part. Claude Opus 5.5 Max leads the intelligence index 59.1 to 35.5, a gap of 23.6 points. No hands-on testing went into this write-up; it summarises the recorded benchmark, price and speed data for both models.

Benchmark scores

On the intelligence index, Claude Opus 5.5 Max scores 59.1 against 35.5 for Grok 4.7 Xhigh. These scores put the two models in different leagues on overall capability. Put another way, Grok 4.7 Xhigh would need 66% more on this index to draw level.

Among 109 active scored models, Claude Opus 5.5 Max sits 2nd and Grok 4.7 Xhigh 38th.

There are no coding or math index scores for either model in the catalogue, which keeps this comparison at the aggregate level.

What they cost

Claude Opus 5.5 Max lists $4.00 per million input tokens and $20.00 per million output tokens; Grok 4.7 Xhigh lists $2.00 and $6.00. Claude Opus 5.5 Max costs 3.3 times as much per output token.

Take 1 million input tokens and 200,000 output tokens: that comes to $8.00 on Claude Opus 5.5 Max and $3.20 on Grok 4.7 Xhigh. A bigger example, a support assistant answering 10,000 conversations of 2,000 input and 500 output tokens each, costs $180 on Claude Opus 5.5 Max and $70.00 on Grok 4.7 Xhigh: a gap of $110.

Value for money

Dividing the blended price by the intelligence index gives a rough cost per point: $0.14 for Claude Opus 5.5 Max and $0.085 for Grok 4.7 Xhigh, per million tokens. So Claude Opus 5.5 Max buys its higher score at a premium, while Grok 4.7 Xhigh is the value pick, paying 38% less per point.

Release timing

Grok 4.7 Xhigh came first, on September 21, 2026; Claude Opus 5.5 Max followed on September 22, 2026. They are effectively contemporaries.

Speed and latency

Measured output speed is 95 tokens per second for Claude Opus 5.5 Max and 65 tokens per second for Grok 4.7 Xhigh. Claude Opus 5.5 Max is ahead by 46% on throughput. Time to first token is 10.8 minutes for Claude Opus 5.5 Max and 43 seconds for Grok 4.7 Xhigh. On total time, Grok 4.7 Xhigh wins at ordinary lengths; Claude Opus 5.5 Max's higher throughput only pays off beyond about 120,000 tokens. Waits that long are felt on every chat-style request, though they matter less for batch jobs.

Add the two numbers up for a 1,000-token reply and Grok 4.7 Xhigh finishes first: 11.0 minutes for Claude Opus 5.5 Max, 59 seconds for Grok 4.7 Xhigh.

Common questions about Claude Opus 5.5 Max and Grok 4.7 Xhigh

Is Claude Opus 5.5 Max better than Grok 4.7 Xhigh?

It depends on what you need: Claude Opus 5.5 Max scores higher on the intelligence index, 59.1 to 35.5; Grok 4.7 Xhigh is 63% cheaper on blended price; Claude Opus 5.5 Max streams output 1.5 times as fast; and Grok 4.7 Xhigh reaches its first token sooner.

Which is newer, Claude Opus 5.5 Max or Grok 4.7 Xhigh?

Claude Opus 5.5 Max is newer. It was released on September 22, 2026, one day after Grok 4.7 Xhigh (September 21, 2026).

Does Claude Opus 5.5 Max respond faster than Grok 4.7 Xhigh?

Claude Opus 5.5 Max generates output faster, at 95 tokens per second against 65 tokens per second. Grok 4.7 Xhigh reaches its first token sooner (43 seconds against 10.8 minutes). Counting the first-token wait, Grok 4.7 Xhigh finishes first for any reply shorter than about 120,000 tokens.

Where do these numbers come from?

The figures are the recorded benchmark, price and speed data in Franklin AI's model catalogue. This page is written from that data automatically; neither model was tested by hand for it.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 5.5 Max or Grok 4.7 Xhigh?

Grok 4.7 Xhigh is cheaper on a blended basis. Claude Opus 5.5 Max lists $4.00 per million input tokens and $20.00 per million output tokens; Grok 4.7 Xhigh lists $2.00 and $6.00. For 1 million input and 200,000 output tokens that is $8.00 against $3.20.

Final whistle

The verdict: on balance the numbers favour Claude Opus 5.5 Max, though Grok 4.7 Xhigh keeps a case of its own. Pick Grok 4.7 Xhigh if users are waiting on the first word and cost matters ($6.00 against $20.00 per million output tokens). Pick Claude Opus 5.5 Max if you need the higher overall score (59.1 against 35.5) and you generate very long outputs, beyond about 120,000 tokens.

Where the numbers come from

The scores, speed and prices in this comparison come from independent third-party model evaluations that Franklin AI syncs each day, and the article was written from a snapshot of them. For the latest results, open the Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) and Grok 4.7 (Xhigh) pages. The AI Benchmark methodology explains how that data is collected and shown.