Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) vs Beam 1.0
Which is better for the money: Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) by Google or Beam 1.0 by Reflection? 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 40.0 points higher (57.7 vs 17.7) but costs 24× as much to run the benchmark ($5903 vs $250; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) when you need intelligence above 17.7, and Beam 1.0 when 17.7 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) | Beam 1.0 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.7 | 17.7 | −69.3% Beam 1.0 is 69.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,903.03 | $249.83 | −95.8% Beam 1.0 is 95.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.62s | 7.56s | −34.9% Beam 1.0 is 34.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.40 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text |
Beam 1.0 vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium): 69.3% less intelligence, 95.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 34.9% faster 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.
- Beam 1.0 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Terra (Medium) scores 38.10 for $190.
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)Beam 1.0Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights 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/reflection-beam · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemini-4-carbon-medium/reflection-beam?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill