DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) vs Gemini 3.6 Flash (High)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) by DeepSeek or Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) scores 22.6 points higher (34.0 vs 11.4) but costs 3.5× as much to run the benchmark ($1614 vs $461; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) when you need intelligence above 11.4, and DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) when 11.4 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) | Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.4 | 34.0 | +198.2% Gemini 3.6 Flash (Hig… is 3.0× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $460.74 | $1,614.42 | +250.4% Gemini 3.6 Flash (Hig… is 3.5× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 20.16s | 19.55s | −3.0% Gemini 3.6 Flash (Hig… is 3.0% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $4.00 | $0.75 / $3.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) vs DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25): 198.2% more intelligence, 250.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 3.0% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)Gemini 3.6 Flash (High)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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