DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) vs GPT-5.6 Terra (Max)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) by DeepSeek or GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) scores 30.7 points higher (42.1 vs 11.4) but costs 5.4× as much to run the benchmark ($2501 vs $461; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) when you need intelligence above 11.4, and DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) when 11.4 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) | GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.4 | 42.1 | +269.3% GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) is 3.7× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $460.74 | $2,500.72 | +442.8% GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) is 5.4× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 19.17s | 113.99s | +494.6% GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) is 494.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $4.00 | $2.00 / $12.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) vs DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25): 269.3% more intelligence, 442.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 494.6% slower 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.
- GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)GPT-5.6 Terra (Max)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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