Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) by Google or Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) by Alibaba? 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 37.6 points higher (57.7 vs 20.1) but costs 2.5× as much to run the benchmark ($5903 vs $2390; both flagship class). Pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh).
| Metric | Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) | Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.7 | 20.1 | −65.2% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 65.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,903.03 | $2,390.04 | −59.5% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 59.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.62s | 65.98s | +467.8% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 467.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium): 65.2% less intelligence, 59.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 467.8% 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.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 54.50 for $1124.
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/gemini-4-carbon-medium/qwen3-8-27b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemini-4-carbon-medium/qwen3-8-27b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill