DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (Max) vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (Max) by DeepSeek or Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) 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
DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (Max) scores 24.8 points higher (36.0 vs 11.2) but costs 3.4× as much to run the benchmark ($1122 vs $329; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (Max) when you need intelligence above 11.2, and Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) when 11.2 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (Max) | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 36.0 | 11.2 | −68.9% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 68.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,122.27 | $328.86 | −70.7% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 70.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 25.65s | 43.21s | +68.5% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 68.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.32 / $3.96 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (Max): 68.9% less intelligence, 70.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 68.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (Max)Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)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-pro/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v4-pro/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill