Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) vs GPT-6 Luna (Max)
Which is better for the money: Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) by Google or GPT-6 Luna (Max) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-03.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) scores 29.9 points higher (57.7 vs 27.8) but costs 43× as much to run the benchmark ($5903 vs $136; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) when you need intelligence above 27.8, and GPT-6 Luna (Max) when 27.8 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) | GPT-6 Luna (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.7 | 27.8 | −51.8% GPT-6 Luna (Max) is 51.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,903.03 | $136.06 | −97.7% GPT-6 Luna (Max) is 97.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 34.07s | 124.31s | +264.9% GPT-6 Luna (Max) is 264.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.10 / $0.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image |
GPT-6 Luna (Max) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium): 51.8% less intelligence, 97.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 264.9% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- GPT-6 Luna (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) scores 29.60 for $121.
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)GPT-6 Luna (Max)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/gemini-4-carbon-medium/gpt-6-luna · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemini-4-carbon-medium/gpt-6-luna?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill