Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) vs GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) by Google or GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) scores 24.3 points higher (39.8 vs 15.5) but costs 48× as much to run the benchmark ($1100 vs $23.0; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) when you need intelligence above 15.5, and GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) when 15.5 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) | GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.8 | 15.5 | −61.1% GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-rea… is 61.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,100.06 | $22.97 | −97.9% GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-rea… is 97.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | Not reported | 4.98s | — not comparable |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.75 / $3.75 | $0.20 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image |
GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) vs Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium): 61.1% less intelligence, 97.9% less 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-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium)GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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