DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) by DeepSeek or Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) 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 (Medium) scores 19.1 points higher (27.6 vs 8.5) but costs 46× as much to run the benchmark ($1165 vs $25.4; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) 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 (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 8.5 | 27.6 | +224.7% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 3.2× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $25.37 | $1,165.00 | +4492.0% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 46× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.85s | 56.04s | +304.6% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 304.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.32 / $0.89 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) vs DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24): 224.7% more intelligence, 4492.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 304.6% 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 (Medium) 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 (Medium)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/qwen3-8-27b-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v3/qwen3-8-27b-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill