DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (High) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (High) by DeepSeek or Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-04.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) scores 29.7 points higher (58.3 vs 28.6) but costs 15× as much to run the benchmark ($5903 vs $384; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) when you need intelligence above 28.6, and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (High) when 28.6 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (High) | Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 28.6 | 58.3 | +103.8% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 2.0× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $384.14 | $5,903.03 | +1436.7% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 15× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 15.37s | 14.23s | −7.4% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 7.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.20 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (High): 103.8% more intelligence, 1436.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 7.4% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Terra (High) scores 42.40 for $267.
- Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (High)Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
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