Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) vs gpt-oss-120b (High)
Which is better for the money: Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) by Google or gpt-oss-120b (High) 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-oss-120b (High) scores 2.7 points higher (11.6 vs 8.9) but costs 8.4× as much to run the benchmark ($123 vs $14.7; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick gpt-oss-120b (High) when you need intelligence above 8.9, and Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) when 8.9 is enough.
| Metric | Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) | gpt-oss-120b (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 8.9 | 11.6 | +30.3% gpt-oss-120b (High) is 30.3% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $14.68 | $122.71 | +735.9% gpt-oss-120b (High) is 8.4× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 57.75s | 12.38s | −78.6% gpt-oss-120b (High) is 78.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.02 / $0.10 | $0.15 / $0.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text |
gpt-oss-120b (High) vs Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning): 30.3% more intelligence, 735.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 78.6% 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-oss-120b (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Max) scores 38.10 for $122.
Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning)gpt-oss-120b (High)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-oss-120b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemma-4-e4b/gpt-oss-120b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill