DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) vs Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) by DeepSeek or Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B scores 28.5 points higher (39.9 vs 11.4) but costs 5.7× as much to run the benchmark ($2632 vs $461; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B when you need intelligence above 11.4, and DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) when 11.4 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) | Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.4 | 39.9 | +250.0% Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B is 3.5× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $460.74 | $2,632.05 | +471.3% Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B is 5.7× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 18.43s | 63.76s | +246.0% Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B is 246.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $4.00 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B vs DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25): 250.0% more intelligence, 471.3% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 246.0% 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.
- Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B 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)Qwen3.8 2.4T A95BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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