DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) by DeepSeek or Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) by Alibaba? 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
Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) scores 25.2 points higher (33.7 vs 8.5) but costs 53× as much to run the benchmark ($1336 vs $25.4; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 8.5, and DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) when 8.5 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) | Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 8.5 | 33.7 | +296.5% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 4.0× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $25.37 | $1,336.09 | +5166.4% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 53× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.85s | 59.47s | +329.4% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 329.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.32 / $0.89 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) vs DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24): 296.5% more intelligence, 5166.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 329.4% 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.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24)Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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