DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) vs GPT-5.5 (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) by DeepSeek or GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) by OpenAI? 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
GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) scores 14.2 points higher (38.4 vs 24.2) but costs 35× as much to run the benchmark ($5294 vs $149; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 24.2, and DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) when 24.2 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) | GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 24.2 | 38.4 | +58.7% GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) is 58.7% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $149.48 | $5,294.36 | +3441.9% GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) is 35× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 100.76s | 55.87s | −44.6% GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) is 44.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.11 / $0.23 | $5.00 / $30.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max): 58.7% more intelligence, 3441.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 44.6% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Max) scores 38.10 for $122.
- GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max)GPT-5.5 (Xhigh)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-v4-flash-0420/gpt-5-5 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v4-flash-0420/gpt-5-5?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill