Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Low)
Which is better for the money: Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) by Google or Qwen3.8 27B (Low) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-02.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) scores 42.0 points higher (57.7 vs 15.7) but costs 4.0× as much to run the benchmark ($5903 vs $1460; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) when you need intelligence above 15.7, and Qwen3.8 27B (Low) when 15.7 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) | Qwen3.8 27B (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.7 | 15.7 | −72.8% Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is 72.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,903.03 | $1,460.07 | −75.3% Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is 75.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | Not reported | 55.84s | — not comparable |
| 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 (Low) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium): 72.8% less intelligence, 75.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and end-to-end time not fully reported.
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 (Low) 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 (Low)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/gemini-4-carbon-medium/qwen3-8-27b-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemini-4-carbon-medium/qwen3-8-27b-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill