Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Low)
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) by Google or Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-04.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) scores 24.1 points higher (54.2 vs 30.1) but costs 1.3× as much to run the benchmark ($5725 vs $4547; both flagship class). Pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium).
| Metric | Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) | Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 30.1 | 54.2 | +80.1% Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is 80.1% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,546.75 | $5,725.02 | +25.9% Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is 25.9% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | Not reported | 16.28s | — 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 (Low) vs Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium): 80.1% more intelligence, 25.9% 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 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 57.40 for $4766.
Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium)Gemini 4 Carbon (Low)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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