Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.8 Max
Which is better for the money: Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) by Google or Qwen3.8 Max 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 scores 31.3 points higher (40.2 vs 8.9) but costs 216× as much to run the benchmark ($3172 vs $14.7; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max 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 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 8.9 | 40.2 | +351.7% Qwen3.8 Max is 4.5× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $14.68 | $3,172.37 | +21510.1% Qwen3.8 Max is 216× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 57.75s | 62.83s | +8.8% Qwen3.8 Max is 8.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.02 / $0.10 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 Max vs Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning): 351.7% more intelligence, 21510.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 8.8% 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 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning)Qwen3.8 MaxToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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