Gemini 2.5 Pro vs Qwen3.8 Max
Which is better for the money: Gemini 2.5 Pro by Google or Qwen3.8 Max 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
Qwen3.8 Max scores 24.1 points higher (40.2 vs 16.1) but costs 3.9× as much to run the benchmark ($3172 vs $823; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max when you need intelligence above 16.1, and Gemini 2.5 Pro when 16.1 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 2.5 Pro | Qwen3.8 Max | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 16.1 | 40.2 | +149.7% Qwen3.8 Max is 2.5× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $822.85 | $3,172.37 | +285.5% Qwen3.8 Max is 3.9× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 27.19s | 64.64s | +137.7% Qwen3.8 Max is 137.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.25 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 Max vs Gemini 2.5 Pro: 149.7% more intelligence, 285.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 137.7% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 2.5 Pro is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
- Qwen3.8 Max is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Gemini 2.5 ProQwen3.8 MaxToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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