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1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

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Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

#111

Post by acjohnson55 »

dathery wrote: post #80
aragonite wrote: post #75

Do long sessions also burn through token budgets much faster? If the chat client is resending the whole conversation each turn, then once you're deep into a session every request already includes tens of thousands of tokens of prior context. So a message at 70k tokens into a conversation is much "heavier" than one at 2k (at least in terms of input tokens). Yes?

That's correct. Input caching helps, but even then at e.g. 800k tokens with all of them cached, the API price is $0.50 * 0.8 = $0.40 per request, which adds up really fast. A "request" can be e.g. a single tool call response, so you can easily end up making many $0.40 requests per minute.

Interesting, so a prompt that causes a couple dozen tool calls will end up costing in the tens of dollars?

Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

#112

Post by furyofantares »

mgambati wrote: post #86
furyofantares wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd been on Codex for a while and with Codex 5.2 I: 1) No longer found the dumb zone 2) No longer feared compaction Switching to Opus for stupid political reasons, I still have not had the dumb zone - but I'm back to disliking compaction events and so the smaller context window it has, has really hurt. I hope they copy OpenAI's compaction magic soon, but I am also very excited to try the longer context window.

1m context in OpenAI and Gemini is just marketing. Opus is the only model to provide real usable bug context.

I'm directly conveying my actual experience to you. I have tasks that fill up Opus context very quickly (at the 200k context) and which took MUCH longer to fill up Codex since 5.2 (which I think had 400k context at the time).

This is direct comparison. I spent months subscribed to both of their $200/mo plans. I would try both and Opus always filled up fast while Codex continued working great. It's also direct experience that Codex continues working great post-compaction since 5.2.

I don't know about Gemini but you're just wrong about Codex. And I say this as someone who hates reporting these facts because I'd like people to stop giving OpenAI money.

Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

#113

Post by robwwilliams »

islewis wrote: post #30
dimitri-vs wrote: post #3

The big change here is: > Standard pricing now applies across the full 1M window for both models, with no long-context premium. Media limits expand to 600 images or PDF pages. For Claude Code users this is huge - assuming coherence remains strong past 200k tok.

The quality with the 1M window has been very poor for me, specifically for coding tasks. It constantly forgets stuff that has happened in the existing conversation. n=1, ymmv

Yes, especially with shifts in focus of a long conversation. But given the high error rates of Opus 4.6 the last few weeks it is possibly due to other factors. Conversational and code prodding has been essential.

Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

#114

Post by prtmnth »

auggierose wrote: post #43
radley wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5x Max is the plan I use because the Pro plan limits out so quickly. I don't use Claude full-time, but I do need Claude Code, and I do prefer to use Opus for everything because it's focused and less chatty.

Sure, I get it. For me a 2x Max would be ideal and usually enough. Now, guess why they are not offering that?

Same here. I'd love a 2x Max plan! More than enough usage for my needs.

Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

#115

Post by s900mhz »

roygbiv2 wrote: post #74
hombre_fatal wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, when you hit compaction at 200k tokens, that was probably when things were just getting good. The plan was in its final stage. The context had the hard-fought nuances discovered in the final moment. Or the agent just discovered some tiny important details after a crazy 100k token deep dive or flailing death cycle. Now you have to compact and you don’t know what will survive. And the built-in UI doesn’t give you…

I've found compactation kills the whole thing. Important debug steps completely missing and the AI loops back round thinking it's found a solution when we've already done that step.

I find it useful to make Claude track the debugging session with a markdown file. It’s like a persistent memory for a long session over many context windows.

Or make a subagent do the debugging and let the main agent orchestrate it over many subagent sessions.

Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

#116

Post by LoganDark »

Finally, I don't have to constantly reload my Extra Usage balance when I already pay $200/mo for their most expensive plan. I can't believe they even did that. I couldn't use 1M context at all because I already pay $200/mo and it was going to ask me for even more.

Next step should be to allow fast mode to draw from the $200/mo usage balance. Again, I pay $200/mo, I should at least be able to send a single message without being asked to cough up more. (One message in fast mode costs a few dollars each) One would think $200/mo would give me any measure of ability to use their more expensive capabilities but it seems it's bucketed to only the capabilities that are offered to even free users.

Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

#117

Post by Frannky »

Opus 4.6 is nuts. Everything I throw at it works. Frontend, backend, algorithms—it does not matter.

I start with a PRD, ask for a step-by-step plan, and just execute on each step at a time. Sometimes ideas are dumb, but checking and guiding step by step helps it ship working things in hours.

It was also the first AI I felt, "Damn, this thing is smarter than me."

The other crazy thing is that with today's tech, these things can be made to work at 1k tokens/sec with multiple agents working at the same time, each at that speed.

Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

#118

Post by eru »

Frannky wrote: post #117

Opus 4.6 is nuts. Everything I throw at it works. Frontend, backend, algorithms—it does not matter. I start with a PRD, ask for a step-by-step plan, and just execute on each step at a time. Sometimes ideas are dumb, but checking and guiding step by step helps it ship working things in hours. It was also the first AI I felt, "Damn, this thing is smarter than me." The other crazy thing is that with today's tech, these…

> [...] with multiple agents working at the same time, each at that speed.

Horizontal parallelising of tasks doesn't really require any modern tech.

But I agree that Opus 4.6 with 1M context window is really good at lots of routine programming tasks.

Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

#120

Post by kaizenb »

MikeNotThePope wrote: post #20
dimitri-vs wrote: post #3

The big change here is: > Standard pricing now applies across the full 1M window for both models, with no long-context premium. Media limits expand to 600 images or PDF pages. For Claude Code users this is huge - assuming coherence remains strong past 200k tok.

Is it ever useful to have a context window that full? I try to keep usage under 40%, or about 80k tokens, to avoid what Dex Horthy calls the dumb zone in his research-plan-implement approach. Works well for me so far. No vibes allowed: https://youtu.be/rmvDxxNubIg?is=adMmmKdVxraYO2yQ

Thanks for the video.

His fix for "the dumb zone" is the RPI Framework:

● RESEARCH. Don't code yet. Let the agent scan the files first. Docs lie. Code doesn't.

● PLAN. The agent writes a detailed step-by-step plan. You review and approve the plan, not just the output. Dex calls this avoiding "outsourcing your thinking." The plan is where intent gets compressed before execution starts.

● IMPLEMENT. Execute in a fresh context window. The meta-principle he calls Frequent Intentional Compaction: don't let the chat run long. Ask the agent to summarize state, open a new chat with that summary, keep the model in the smart zone.

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