Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) vs Gemini 4 Argon (High)
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) by Google or Gemini 4 Argon (High) by Google? 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
Gemini 4 Argon (High) scores 18.6 points higher (52.6 vs 34.0) but costs 1.5× as much to run the benchmark ($2407 vs $1614; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Gemini 4 Argon (High) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Gemini 3.6 Flash (High).
| Metric | Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) | Gemini 4 Argon (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 34.0 | 52.6 | +54.7% Gemini 4 Argon (High) is 54.7% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,614.42 | $2,407.24 | +49.1% Gemini 4 Argon (High) is 49.1% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 18.02s | 63.35s | +251.6% Gemini 4 Argon (High) is 251.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.75 / $3.75 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image |
Gemini 4 Argon (High) vs Gemini 3.6 Flash (High): 54.7% more intelligence, 49.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 251.6% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Gemini 4 Argon (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
Gemini 3.6 Flash (High)Gemini 4 Argon (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/gemini-3-6-flash/gemini-4-argon · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemini-3-6-flash/gemini-4-argon?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill