Claude 4.6 Sonnet vs Claude 3 Opus

1. Most capable Sonnet model yet

• Anthropic describes Sonnet 4.6 as its most capable Sonnet model.
• It is a full upgrade across coding, computer use, long-context reasoning, agent planning, knowledge work, and design.

2. Stronger coding and professional task performance at Sonnet pricing

• Pricing remains at $3/M input and $15/M output, matching Sonnet 4.5.
• Anthropic says early-access developers strongly preferred it to Sonnet 4.5, and often even to Opus 4.5 for practical work.

3. Long-context, agent-friendly reasoning

• Supports up to a 1M token context window in beta.
• Anthropic reports better consistency, fewer false claims of success, fewer hallucinations, and more reliable follow-through on multi-step tasks.

4. Modern API controls for adaptive work

• Supports adaptive thinking and the effort parameter for balancing speed, cost, and depth.
• Gains dynamic filtering for web search and web fetch, helping agent workflows keep only relevant information in context.

1. Intelligence & Reasoning

• Highest capability in the Claude 3 family
• Near-human comprehension and fluency
• Excels at MMLU, GPQA, GSM8K, advanced reasoning tasks

2. Complex Problem Solving

• Best for research, strategy, multi-step planning
• Handles ambiguous, open-ended tasks with ease

3. Vision & Multimodal Capabilities

• Strong chart/graph understanding
• Processes documents, technical diagrams, and dense visual data

4. Recall & Long-Context Reasoning

• Near-perfect recall (>99% on NIAH benchmark)
• Handles very large documents and multi-file workflows

5. Enterprise-Grade Accuracy

• Significantly reduced hallucinations
• High correctness rate for factual queries