Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) by Google or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 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 (0902) scores 5.6 points higher (45.4 vs 39.8) but costs 4.5× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $1100; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 39.8, and Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) when 39.8 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.8 | 45.4 | +14.1% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 14.1% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,100.06 | $4,934.79 | +348.6% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 4.5× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | Not reported | 65.39s | — not comparable |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.75 / $3.75 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium): 14.1% more intelligence, 348.6% 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-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium)Qwen3.8 Max (0902)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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