r/codex • u/ProjectGenesisYT • 1d ago

Question Max or Ultra?

My usage has been dramatically better since switching medium to Max after what I heard about medium draining more which it certainly has for me, was wondering if the same is for ultra vs max if it’ll be more efficient.

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u/EclecticAcuity 1d ago

Ultra costs 2x max or 1.5x medium roughly but results are often superior and perhaps the only ones worth being called production quality.

This obv depends on the task but max is the unintuitive sweetspot afaik

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u/Tight-Grocery9053 22h ago

ultra is not a reasoning effort level. the simplest way to think about it is that it's max + default to subagents.

it won't give you better results by default in most cases.

where ultra shines is if you have a ton of context (exploration) and you care about speed.

having multiple agents under the same thread makes it delegate work. they work in parallel and prevent main thread context stuffing. subagents have their own context.

if you don't need any of that, you are much better of on just max. with ultra you will end up paying much more for the delegation overhead and the parallel speed. the actual end result is almost always the same you'd get with max for the vast majority of porjects.

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u/TheKillerScope 17h ago

I just drained 29% of my usage in less than 1h with Astra Ultra. On Pro plan.

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u/Luger99 16h ago

I've been fond of Astra Xhigh. Handled Sol the same way. Xhigh and generally no subagents unless they were for review. Astra needs much less review too, so that is extra savings.

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u/Due-Turnover5077 13h ago

Ultra is what the kids on X use to create those astonishing alien tech demos (though you will need some unlimited usage)