DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) vs GPT-5.6 Terra (Max)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) 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 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) scores 33.6 points higher (42.1 vs 8.5) but costs 99× as much to run the benchmark ($2501 vs $25.4; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) when you need intelligence above 8.5, and DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) when 8.5 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) | GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 8.5 | 42.1 | +395.3% GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) is 5.0× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $25.37 | $2,500.72 | +9757.0% GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) is 99× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.89s | 104.98s | +782.9% GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) is 782.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.32 / $0.89 | $2.00 / $12.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) vs DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24): 395.3% more intelligence, 9757.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 782.9% 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-5.6 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 V3 (Dec '24)GPT-5.6 Terra (Max)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v3/gpt-5-6-terra · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v3/gpt-5-6-terra?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill