I’ve just run GPT-4.5 against Claude 3.7 Sonnet on my personal coding and creative benchmark suite, and the results shocked me. While I expected some performance gaps, what I found was a complete mismatch – Claude dominates GPT-4.5 across almost every test.
My benchmark pushed both models through nine increasingly difficult tasks ranging from basic JavaScript animations to complex self-generating RPGs and 3D voxel art. Claude passed 7 of 9 tests, while GPT-4.5 passed only 2. Let that sink in.
The performance gap was most glaring in coding challenges. When asked to create a two-player Snake game with an AI opponent, Claude delivered a functional (if imperfect) solution. GPT-4.5? Complete failure – not even playable. For Three.js voxel art of Mario, Claude initially had an error but quickly recovered. GPT-4.5 crashed and burned without recovery.
Even on seemingly simpler tasks like building a styled FAQ widget, Claude produced a very good implementation while GPT-4.5 failed to include basic requested elements. Claude’s city SVG generation was genuinely impressive – complex and detailed. GPT-4.5 gave me something embarrassingly simplistic.
The gap extends beyond pure coding. In a brand voice writing task with large context handling, Claude produced a solid blog post while GPT-4.5 spat out irrelevant, boring content that completely missed the assignment. Even in creative writing with a humor prompt, Claude consistently outperformed.
Only in SaaS landing page creation and basic JS animation did GPT-4.5 manage to keep pace – and even there, Claude’s output was initially better.
This terrible performance is particularly surprising given GPT-4.5’s supposed improvements over 4.0. The model feels like it’s gone backward in technical capabilities, not forward. Meanwhile, Claude’s 3.7 Sonnet is absolutely crushing technical tasks.
Some might argue this is just one benchmark, but the pattern is clear. I’ve been running variations of these tests for a while, and Claude has been steadily improving while GPT seems stagnant or regressing on complex coding tasks.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Other benchmarks are showing similar results. Claude 3.7 Sonnet demonstrates state-of-the-art performance on SWE-bench Verified and TAU-bench, particularly in front-end development.
The price difference makes this even more stark. Claude 3.7 Sonnet offers twice the throughput of GPT-4.5 at a fraction of the cost. We’re talking better performance for less money – not exactly a tough decision.
For developers and technical content creators, these results should inform your choices. If you’re building applications that require code generation, front-end work, or technical creativity, Claude is currently delivering significantly better results than GPT-4.5.
The AI landscape shifts quickly, and OpenAI may address these issues in future updates. But for now, the data speaks for itself – Claude 3.7 Sonnet is the superior choice for technical tasks, and GPT-4.5 has some serious catching up to do.
Check out my related post AI MODEL BATTLE: GPT-4.5 VS CLAUDE 3.7 VS GROK 3 – WHO WINS WHERE? for more comparative analysis of these leading models.
What has your experience been with these models? Have you noticed similar performance patterns in your own testing? Let me know in the comments.
