Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) vs GPT-5.6 Sol (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) by Google or GPT-5.6 Sol (Medium) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-5.6 Sol (Medium) scores 30.3 points higher (39.2 vs 8.9) but costs 68× as much to run the benchmark ($997 vs $14.7; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.6 Sol (Medium) when you need intelligence above 8.9, and Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) when 8.9 is enough.
| Metric | Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) | GPT-5.6 Sol (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 8.9 | 39.2 | +340.4% GPT-5.6 Sol (Medium) is 4.4× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $14.68 | $997.39 | +6694.2% GPT-5.6 Sol (Medium) is 68× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 57.75s | 10.00s | −82.7% GPT-5.6 Sol (Medium) is 82.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.02 / $0.10 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image |
GPT-5.6 Sol (Medium) vs Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning): 340.4% more intelligence, 6694.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 82.7% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- GPT-5.6 Sol (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning)GPT-5.6 Sol (Medium)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/gemma-4-e4b/gpt-5-6-sol-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemma-4-e4b/gpt-5-6-sol-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill