DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) vs GPT-5.6 Terra (Max)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) 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 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) scores 2.6 points higher (42.1 vs 39.5) but costs 3.7× as much to run the benchmark ($2501 vs $672; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) when you need intelligence above 39.5, and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) when 39.5 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) | GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.5 | 42.1 | +6.6% GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) is 6.6% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $671.96 | $2,500.72 | +272.2% GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) is 3.7× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 15.04s | 107.91s | +617.5% GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) is 617.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.29 / $1.20 | $2.00 / $12.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max): 6.6% more intelligence, 272.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 617.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
- 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 V4.1 Flash (Max)GPT-5.6 Terra (Max)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/gpt-5-6-terra · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v4-1-flash/gpt-5-6-terra?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill