Gemini 4 Carbon (High) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Gemini 4 Carbon (High) by Google or Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-29.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 4 Carbon (High) scores 39.3 points higher (59.4 vs 20.1) but costs 3.4× as much to run the benchmark ($8240 vs $2390; both flagship class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 4 Carbon (High) when you need intelligence above 20.1, and Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) when 20.1 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 4 Carbon (High) | Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 59.4 | 20.1 | −66.2% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 66.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $8,239.69 | $2,390.04 | −71.0% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 71.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 105.19s | 71.66s | −31.9% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 31.9% faster |
| 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 (High): 66.2% less intelligence, 71.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 31.9% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 4 Carbon (High) 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 (High)Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh)Today'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/qwen3-8-27b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemini-4-carbon/qwen3-8-27b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill