Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (High)
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) by Google or Gemini 4 Carbon (High) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-29.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 4 Carbon (High) scores 29.4 points higher (59.4 vs 30.0) but costs 1.8× as much to run the benchmark ($8240 vs $4547; both flagship class). Pick Gemini 4 Carbon (High) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium).
| Metric | Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) | Gemini 4 Carbon (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 30.0 | 59.4 | +98.0% Gemini 4 Carbon (High) is 98.0% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,546.75 | $8,239.69 | +81.2% Gemini 4 Carbon (High) is 81.2% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | Not reported | 102.49s | — not comparable |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.75 / $3.75 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 4 Carbon (High) vs Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium): 98.0% more intelligence, 81.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and end-to-end time not fully reported.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Astra (Xhigh) scores 55.30 for $3746.
- Gemini 4 Carbon (High) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium)Gemini 4 Carbon (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-3-8-flash-medium/gemini-4-carbon · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemini-3-8-flash-medium/gemini-4-carbon?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill