Model Comparison
Claude Opus 4.8 vs MiMo-V2.6-Flash
Too close to call: the best configurations, Claude Opus 4.8 (max effort) and MiMo-V2.6-Flash (thinking on), are 26 Elo apart, and their 95% ranges overlap. Among 78 models, each ranked by its best configuration, Claude Opus 4.8 is #15 and MiMo-V2.6-Flash is #18. Cost per script: $1.23 for Claude Opus 4.8 (max effort) and $0.0057 for MiMo-V2.6-Flash (thinking on).
Last updated , from board data generated at 01:13 UTC.
Picks and Verdict
PickClaude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 (max effort)
Pick Claude Opus 4.8 (max effort) when the script has to land on the target length, where it scores 94.6 against 87.6.
PickMiMo-V2.6-Flash
MiMo-V2.6-Flash (thinking on)
Pick MiMo-V2.6-Flash (thinking on) for drafts in volume, since $0.0057 a script gets you within 26 Elo of Opus at max effort.
MiMo-V2.6-Flash (thinking on) costs $0.0057 a script. Claude Opus 4.8 (max effort) costs $1.23, more than two hundred times as much, and I can't justify that gap. Opus is #15 of 78 models and MiMo is the #18 model, each ranked by its best setting, and those settings are 26 Elo apart with overlapping 95% ranges, so the board cannot separate them. Stepping down to Claude Opus 4.8 (high) doesn't change that: MiMo's one setting sits 119 Elo above it, with ranges that don't overlap, at a small fraction of its $0.193. Opus at max effort does win five of the nine metrics, and the big one is length, where it leads by seven points. If a script has to land on the target length, that's a real argument. MiMo takes tone, craft and the hook, though, and tone carries the most weight in the Writing Score. For anything I'd write in volume, I'd run MiMo and keep the difference.
Disclosure: Claude Opus 4.8 comes from the same lab as one of the four judges, Claude Opus 5.5. The other three sit outside its lab, so it is never scored by its own lab alone (how the panel works). The judge analysis measures how much each judge favors its own lab.
How to Read the Writing Score, Writing Elo and 95% Ranges
Writing Score and Writing Elo. The Writing Score (0 to 100) is the weighted average of the nine metric scores: seven from the judges, Length Adherence from code and the Slop Score half from each. The Writing Elo is a rating from pairwise comparisons: on each script, each configuration's average across its drafts is compared with every other configuration's, and gaps within the draft-to-draft variation count as draws. Elo rewards winning often, so the two can put configurations in a different order.
Elo ranges. Each 95% range shows how far a configuration's Elo could move if the drafts had come out slightly differently. It comes from resampling every configuration's recorded draft scores on each reference script and ranking again. Comparing two separate ranges does not test the Elo gap between them: ranges far apart are strong evidence for the order, and overlapping ranges do not mean a tie. The reference scripts stay fixed, so the ranges say nothing about new scripts. The methodology page has the full description.
All Thinking Levels of Both Models
Every ranked configuration of Claude Opus 4.8 and MiMo-V2.6-Flash, scored on the same 10 scripts by the same four judges.
- Each row is one configuration: the model at one thinking level. The dot is its Writing Elo, a rating from pairwise comparisons of the scores on each script, and the bar is its 95% range: how far that Elo could move if the drafts had come out slightly differently.
- When two bars overlap, the board cannot order those two configurations. Bars far apart are strong evidence for the order.
- The table under the chart lists the same configurations in the same order and adds the Writing Score (the 0 to 100 consensus of the judges and code), cost, time and configuration rank (the place among all configurations on the board).
Shaded rows are the configurations chosen for the metric comparison below.
| Configuration | Writing Elo | 95% Range | Writing Score | Cost / Script | Time / Script | Reasoning Tokens | Configuration Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 4.8 (max effort) | 2013 | 1977 to 2047 | 80.7 | $1.23 | 9.8 min | N/A | #30 |
| MiMo-V2.6-Flash (thinking on) | 1987 | 1929 to 2034 | 80.4 | $0.0057 | 3.5 min | 11,025 | #35 |
| Claude Opus 4.8 (high) | 1868 | 1827 to 1905 | 79.3 | $0.193 | 1.4 min | N/A | #44 |
Cost is one script at the API list price of the route used, uncached and without judging. Time is the average for one accepted script, retries included. N/A under Reasoning Tokens means the board has no separate reasoning count for that route.
Computed Findings Across Thinking Levels
Each finding is computed from the configurations above. Where two 95% ranges overlap, the board cannot order those two configurations.
- Best Configurations Head to Head. Claude Opus 4.8 (max effort) at Elo 2013 (range 1977 to 2047) and MiMo-V2.6-Flash (thinking on) at Elo 1987 (range 1929 to 2034) have overlapping 95% ranges, so the board cannot separate the two best configurations.
- Cheapest Configuration Overlapping the Top One. MiMo-V2.6-Flash (thinking on), at $0.0057 per script, is the cheapest configuration whose 95% range overlaps that of Claude Opus 4.8 (max effort), at $1.23 per script: 1929 to 2034 against 1977 to 2047, so the board cannot separate them. Claude Opus 4.8 (max effort) costs about 216 times as much per script.
- Cheapest Claude Opus 4.8 Configuration Above MiMo-V2.6-Flash's Best. The cheapest Claude Opus 4.8 configuration with a higher Writing Elo than MiMo-V2.6-Flash (thinking on), at Elo 1987 and $0.0057 per script, is Claude Opus 4.8 (max effort), at Elo 2013 and $1.23 per script. Their 95% ranges overlap, so the board cannot separate them. It costs about 216 times as much per script.
- Lowest to Highest Thinking Level. Claude Opus 4.8 moves +145 Elo from high to max effort, at about 6.4 times the cost per script.
Two Chosen Configurations Compared
Pick one configuration of each model to compare their metric scores, consistency across drafts and per-script scores. Each menu starts on the model's best configuration.
Scores by Metric
Claude Opus 4.8 (max effort) scores higher on five of the nine metrics and MiMo-V2.6-Flash (thinking on) on four. Weighted by each metric's share of the Writing Score, Length Adherence does the most to put Claude Opus 4.8 (max effort) ahead, with a 7.0-point lead on that metric. The weight beside each metric is its share of the Writing Score.
Consistency Across Drafts
| Claude Opus 4.8 (max effort) | MiMo-V2.6-Flash (thinking on) | |
|---|---|---|
| Score spread across drafts (±) | 2.02 | 1.86 |
| Lowest script score | 77.5 Script 4 | 78.9 Script 1 |
| Highest script score | 83.1 Script 6 | 81.9 Script 5 |
| Range across scripts | 5.6 | 3.0 |
Spread is how much the Writing Score moves between a configuration's drafts, and lower is steadier. Green marks the better number in each row.
Scores by Script
Writing Score on each reference script. Gap is Claude Opus 4.8 (max effort) minus MiMo-V2.6-Flash (thinking on), and the higher score is in bold.
| Script | Claude Opus 4.8 (max effort) | MiMo-V2.6-Flash (thinking on) | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Script 1 opinion / warning explainer | 80.2 | 78.9 | +1.3 |
| Script 2 news-analysis / skeptical explainer | 80.6 | 80.3 | +0.3 |
| Script 3 personal roadmap / opinion | 79.3 | 79.4 | -0.1 |
| Script 4 short explainer | 77.5 | 79.4 | -1.9 |
| Script 5 news-analysis / opinion explainer | 80.3 | 81.9 | -1.6 |
| Script 6 founder announcement / personal origin story | 83.1 | 81.4 | +1.7 |
| Script 7 personal technical walkthrough / agentic workflow case study | 82.5 | 79.9 | +2.6 |
| Script 8 product release announcement / personal observation | 82.5 | 81.4 | +1.1 |
| Script 9 career guide / hiring analysis | 82.0 | 81.9 | +0.1 |
| Script 10 engineering process walkthrough / presentation adaptation | 78.9 | 79.7 | -0.8 |
Scorecards and Thinking Pages
Each configuration name in the table above opens its own scorecard.
Compare With Another Model
Pick a second model. A pair with its own written match-up opens that page, and any other pair opens in the comparison tool.
Nearby Match-Ups by Best Writing Elo
Every configuration wrote five drafts for each of the same 10 briefs, from the same prompt. Generation was closed-book, with the prompt as the only source and no web search or other tools. Each judge scores every draft once: Claude Opus 5.5 at medium effort through the Claude Code subscription, GPT-6.1 Sol at medium reasoning through the Codex CLI, GLM 5.3 Flash through OpenRouter, and Jev 1.13, a typed judge from TypeSafe that answers each metric as a multiple-choice question. The channel's finished script is their reference for the voice, and it gets no score on the board itself.
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