Model Comparison
GPT-5.6 Sol vs Claude Sonnet 5
GPT-5.6 Sol (low) leads Claude Sonnet 5 (max effort) by 359 Elo, and their 95% ranges sit 277 Elo apart. Even GPT-5.6 Sol's lowest-rated configuration, GPT-5.6 Sol (ultra), ranks above Claude Sonnet 5 (max effort). Among 78 models, each ranked by its best configuration, GPT-5.6 Sol is #8 and Claude Sonnet 5 is #23. Cost per script: $0.113 for GPT-5.6 Sol (low) and $0.696 for Claude Sonnet 5 (max effort).
Last updated , from board data generated at 01:13 UTC.
Picks and Verdict
PickGPT-5.6 Sol
GPT-5.6 Sol (low)
Pick GPT-5.6 Sol (low) for nearly everything, since it sits 359 Elo above the best Sonnet 5 setting at $0.113 a script.
PickClaude Sonnet 5
Claude Sonnet 5 (max effort)
Pick Claude Sonnet 5 (max effort) when landing the requested length matters most, since its 96.6 on Length Adherence is the highest on this page.
Both Claude Sonnet 5 settings cost more than GPT-5.6 Sol (low), and neither gets close to it. Sol at low costs $0.113 a script, takes about a minute, and sits 359 Elo above Claude Sonnet 5 (max effort), which costs $0.696 and takes twelve. Their 95% ranges are nowhere near each other. Paying for ultra on Sol doesn't change much: it's 5 Elo down, the board can't separate the two, and the price more than triples. More thinking does a lot more for Sonnet 5, 207 Elo from high to max effort at almost six times the cost. Even so, it is the #23 model of 78 and GPT-5.6 Sol the #8 model, each ranked by its best setting. To be fair, Sonnet 5 at max effort has the best Length Adherence on the page, and it stays about a point behind Sol on continuity. The gaps that are hard to edit around are substance and hooks, about seven and eight points behind Sol at low, and its drafts are less steady. For a script I'd record, I'd run GPT-5.6 Sol at low.
Disclosure: GPT-5.6 Sol and Claude Sonnet 5 each come from the same lab as one of the judges (GPT-6.1 Sol and Claude Opus 5.5). Neither is 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 GPT-5.6 Sol and Claude Sonnet 5, 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 | Configuration Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.6 Sol (low) | 2218 | 2181 to 2251 | 82.3 | $0.113 | 0.9 min | #16 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol (ultra) | 2213 | 2173 to 2266 | 82.3 | $0.367 | 4.1 min | #18 |
| Claude Sonnet 5 (max effort) | 1859 | 1812 to 1904 | 79.2 | $0.696 | 12.0 min | #45 |
| Claude Sonnet 5 (high) | 1652 | 1602 to 1703 | 76.6 | $0.121 | 1.9 min | #58 |
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.
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. GPT-5.6 Sol (low) leads Claude Sonnet 5 (max effort) by 359 Elo, and their 95% ranges do not overlap (2181 to 2251 against 1812 to 1904), which is strong evidence for that order.
- Every GPT-5.6 Sol Configuration Ranks Higher. Both GPT-5.6 Sol configurations rank above both Claude Sonnet 5 configurations: the lowest-rated, GPT-5.6 Sol (ultra) at Elo 2213, still beats Claude Sonnet 5 (max effort) at Elo 1859. Their 95% ranges do not overlap.
- Lowest Thinking Levels Head to Head. At their lowest thinking levels, GPT-5.6 Sol (low) at Elo 2218 and $0.113 per script leads Claude Sonnet 5 (high) at Elo 1652 and $0.121 per script by 566 Elo. Their 95% ranges do not overlap.
- Cheapest GPT-5.6 Sol Configuration Above Claude Sonnet 5's Best. The cheapest GPT-5.6 Sol configuration with a higher Writing Elo than Claude Sonnet 5 (max effort), at Elo 1859 and $0.696 per script, is GPT-5.6 Sol (low), at Elo 2218 and $0.113 per script. It costs less than the configuration it beats.
- Lowest to Highest Thinking Level. GPT-5.6 Sol moves -5 Elo from low to ultra, at about 3.2 times the cost per script. Claude Sonnet 5 moves +207 Elo from high to max effort, at about 5.8 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
GPT-5.6 Sol (low) scores higher on eight of the nine metrics and Claude Sonnet 5 (max effort) on one. Weighted by each metric's share of the Writing Score, Substance, Accuracy & Value does the most to put GPT-5.6 Sol (low) ahead, with a 7.2-point lead on that metric. The weight beside each metric is its share of the Writing Score.
Consistency Across Drafts
| GPT-5.6 Sol (low) | Claude Sonnet 5 (max effort) | |
|---|---|---|
| Score spread across drafts (±) | 1.27 | 2.39 |
| Lowest script score | 79.8 Script 4 | 75.7 Script 4 |
| Highest script score | 84.2 Script 9 | 81.5 Script 9 |
| Range across scripts | 4.4 | 5.8 |
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 GPT-5.6 Sol (low) minus Claude Sonnet 5 (max effort), and the higher score is in bold.
| Script | GPT-5.6 Sol (low) | Claude Sonnet 5 (max effort) | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Script 1 opinion / warning explainer | 82.1 | 77.4 | +4.7 |
| Script 2 news-analysis / skeptical explainer | 82.5 | 78.9 | +3.6 |
| Script 3 personal roadmap / opinion | 82.3 | 78.1 | +4.2 |
| Script 4 short explainer | 79.8 | 75.7 | +4.1 |
| Script 5 news-analysis / opinion explainer | 83.2 | 80.9 | +2.3 |
| Script 6 founder announcement / personal origin story | 82.8 | 81.1 | +1.7 |
| Script 7 personal technical walkthrough / agentic workflow case study | 82.0 | 81.2 | +0.8 |
| Script 8 product release announcement / personal observation | 82.6 | 79.3 | +3.3 |
| Script 9 career guide / hiring analysis | 84.2 | 81.5 | +2.7 |
| Script 10 engineering process walkthrough / presentation adaptation | 82.0 | 78.0 | +4.0 |
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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