Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) by Google or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) by Alibaba? 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
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores 36.5 points higher (45.4 vs 8.9) but costs 336× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $14.7; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 8.9, and Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) when 8.9 is enough.
| Metric | Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 8.9 | 45.4 | +410.1% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 5.1× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $14.68 | $4,934.79 | +33515.7% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 336× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 57.75s | 63.23s | +9.5% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 9.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.02 / $0.10 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning): 410.1% more intelligence, 33515.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 9.5% slower 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.
- Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning)Qwen3.8 Max (0902)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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