DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) vs GPT-5.5 (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) by DeepSeek or GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) by OpenAI? 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
GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) scores 29.9 points higher (38.4 vs 8.5) but costs 209× as much to run the benchmark ($5294 vs $25.4; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 8.5, and DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) when 8.5 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) | GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 8.5 | 38.4 | +351.8% GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) is 4.5× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $25.37 | $5,294.36 | +20768.6% GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) is 209× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.84s | 44.76s | +278.0% GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) is 278.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.32 / $0.89 | $5.00 / $30.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) vs DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24): 351.8% more intelligence, 20768.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 278.0% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24)GPT-5.5 (Xhigh)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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