DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max) vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High)

Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max) by DeepSeek or DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High) by DeepSeek? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.

Trade-off

DeepSeekDeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max)Off the frontier

Intelligence: 45.10
Total cost: $445

DeepSeekDeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High)Off the frontier

Intelligence: 24.40
Total cost: $121

Verdict

Depends on your budget

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max) scores 20.7 points higher (45.1 vs 24.4) but costs 3.7× as much to run the benchmark ($445 vs $121; both mid-range class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max) when you need intelligence above 24.4, and DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High) when 24.4 is enough.

Metric	DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max)	DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High)	Difference
Intelligence (higher is better)	45.1	24.4	−45.9% DeepSeek V4 Flash 042… is 45.9% less intelligent
Total AA cost (lower is better)	$444.60	$121.20	−72.7% DeepSeek V4 Flash 042… is 72.7% cheaper
End-to-end time (lower is better)	16.16s	Not reported	— not comparable
Price per 1M tokens (in / out)	$0.30 / $1.20	$0.11 / $0.23
Input modalities	Text, Image	Text

DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High) vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max): 45.9% less intelligence, 72.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and end-to-end time not fully reported.

Open this matchup in the interactive picker DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max): what beats it DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High): what beats it

Today's Pareto frontier

Against the frontier

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max)DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (High)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model

Matchup

Compare something else

Agents: Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v4-1-flash-1017/deepseek-v4-flash-0420-high · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v4-1-flash-1017/deepseek-v4-flash-0420-high?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill