Gemini 4 Carbon (High) vs Beam 1.0
Which is better for the money: Gemini 4 Carbon (High) by Google or Beam 1.0 by Reflection? 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 41.7 points higher (59.4 vs 17.7) but costs 33× as much to run the benchmark ($8240 vs $250; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 4 Carbon (High) when you need intelligence above 17.7, and Beam 1.0 when 17.7 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 4 Carbon (High) | Beam 1.0 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 59.4 | 17.7 | −70.2% Beam 1.0 is 70.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $8,239.69 | $249.83 | −97.0% Beam 1.0 is 97.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 108.23s | 8.71s | −92.0% Beam 1.0 is 92.0% 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 (High): 70.2% less intelligence, 97.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 92.0% 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.
- 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 (High)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/reflection-beam · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemini-4-carbon/reflection-beam?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill