DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 vs Gemini 4 Carbon
Full profiles: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (DeepSeek) and Gemini 4 Carbon (Google): every benchmark, price and rank.
Updated · Data from 7 sources
As of 29 Oct 2026, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Gemini 4 Carbon are neck and neck on quality (59.3 vs 65.3 on the BenchLeader Index, inside the ±7.2 margin), and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is 15× cheaper at $0.525 vs $8.00 per 1M tokens blended. Choose DeepSeek V4.1 Flash for long context (66 vs 65) and fast first answers (12.4 s vs 103.1 s), where it also streams ~1.5× faster; choose Gemini 4 Carbon for knowledge (76 vs 48), reasoning (79 vs 58), and coding (72 vs 63).
Key facts (as of 29 Oct 2026)
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash scores 59.3 on the BenchLeader Index and Gemini 4 Carbon scores 65.3 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash costs $0.525 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 29 Oct 2026).
- Gemini 4 Carbon costs $8.00 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 29 Oct 2026).
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash streams ~1.5× faster than Gemini 4 Carbon (Artificial Analysis, 7-day median, 29 Oct 2026).
- Of the 26 benchmarks both models have, Gemini 4 Carbon leads 24 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 benchmarks max DeepSeek
Gemini 4 Carbon benchmarks high GoogleOpen in the comparison toolWhich to pick for…
The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.
| Use case | Pick | Why | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | Gemini 4 Carbon | 72 vs 63 category score; FrontierCode 2.0 (AA) 40.6% vs 28.5% | High |
| Reasoning | Gemini 4 Carbon | 79 vs 58 category score; HLE-Diamond (AA) 69.1% vs 25.3% | High |
| Knowledge | Gemini 4 Carbon | 76 vs 48 category score; AA-Omniscience v1.1 53.5 vs 0.9 | High |
| Long documents | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | 66 vs 65 category score; AA-LCR v1.1 82.7% vs 79.3% | Medium |
| Lowest cost | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | $0.525 vs $8.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.023 vs $0.320 | – |
| Fastest first answer | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | 12.4 s (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max)) vs 103.1 s (Gemini 4 Carbon (high)) to the first answer token | – |
| High volume on a budget | Neither flagship | A smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs | – |
Key differences
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max) and Gemini 4 Carbon (high) are neck and neck on quality (59.3 vs 65.3, within the ±7.2 margin).
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max) is stronger in agents & tools, long context, maths, multimodal.
- Gemini 4 Carbon (high) is stronger in coding, knowledge, reasoning.
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max) is 15× cheaper ($0.525 vs $8.00 per 1M blended).
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max) streams 1.8× faster (179 vs 98 tokens per second).
At a glance
| Spec | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | DeepSeek | |
| Released | 17 Oct 2026 | 28 Oct 2026 |
| Context window (tokens) | 1,048,576 | 1,000,000 |
| Compared at | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max) | Gemini 4 Carbon (high) |
| Open weights | Yes | No |
| Price in / out / cached input per 1M | $0.300 / $1.20 / $0.0060 | $4.00 / $20.00 / – |
Category by category
Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.
| Category | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max) | Gemini 4 Carbon (high) | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reasoning | 57.8 | 79.3 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Coding | 63.0 | 71.9 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Agents & tools | 65.0 | – | not comparable |
| Maths | 61.7 | – | not comparable |
| Knowledge | 47.9 | 76.1 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Multimodal | 63.4 | – | not comparable |
| Long context | 66.2 | 64.5 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
Where sources disagree
Across the 26 benchmarks both have, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 leads 2, Gemini 4 Carbon leads 24. Every overall index that rates both puts Gemini 4 Carbon ahead.
| Overall index | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max) | Gemini 4 Carbon (high) | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | 59.3 | 65.3 | neck and neck |
| AA Intelligence Index v5.0 | 32.5 | 59.4 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Vals Index | 61.3 | 70.4 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).
Price, speed and latency
List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page; suite cost is what Artificial Analysis paid to run its whole Intelligence Index.
| Measure | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max) | Gemini 4 Carbon (high) |
|---|---|---|
| Blended price per 1M tokens | $0.525 | $8.00 |
| Input / output per 1M | $0.300 / $1.20 | $4.00 / $20.00 |
| Cached input per 1M | $0.0060 | – |
| Price per task: chat reply | $0.0005 | $0.0076 |
| Price per task: summarize a 30-page report | $0.0043 | $0.060 |
| Price per task: code edit | $0.0036 | $0.054 |
| Price per task: agentic coding session | $0.023 | $0.320 |
| Price per task: structured extraction | $0.0008 | $0.012 |
| Cost to run a full benchmark suite | $0.602 | $7.76 |
| Output speed | 179 tok/s | 98 tok/s |
| Time to first answer | 12.4 s | 103.1 s |
| Time to a complete answer | 15.2 s | 108.2 s |
Per token is not per task: on Artificial Analysis' full suite DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max) cost $0.602 and Gemini 4 Carbon (high) $7.76, because DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max) used about 1.2× as many tokens for the same work.
Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max) scores 59.3 and takes 12 s to its first answer token. Gemini 4 Carbon (high) scores 65.3 and takes 103 s to its first answer token. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.
Every benchmark
72 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.
| Metric | Publisher | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max) | Gemini 4 Carbon (high) |
|---|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | BenchLeader | 59.3 | 65.3 |
| Agents & tools score | BenchLeader | 65.0 | – |
| Coding score | BenchLeader | 63.0 | 71.9 |
| Knowledge score | BenchLeader | 47.9 | 76.1 |
| Long context score | BenchLeader | 66.2 | 64.5 |
| Maths score | BenchLeader | 61.7 | – |
| Multimodal score | BenchLeader | 63.4 | – |
| Reasoning score | BenchLeader | 57.8 | 79.3 |
| Blended price $/M | BenchLeader | $0.525 | $8.00 |
| Output speed | BenchLeader | 179 tok/s | 98 tok/s |
| Time to first answer | BenchLeader | 12.4 s | 103.1 s |
| Context window | BenchLeader | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Reasoning | |||
| GPQA Diamond | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 93.2% | – |
| LiveBench 2.0 Reasoning | LiveBench | 89.1%† | – |
| Humanity's Last Exam (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 43.3% | 60.4% |
| HLE-Diamond (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 25.3% | 69.1% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | ARC Prize | 93.5% | – |
| ARC-AGI-2 | ARC Prize | 78.1% | – |
| CritPt | Artificial Analysis | 24.0% | 36.0% |
| CritPt v2 hard subset (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 24.0% | 63.0% |
| Chess Puzzles | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 46.0% | – |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 49.0% | – |
| Coding | |||
| SciCode | SciCode | 55.9% | 64.2% |
| Arena WebDev | Arena (LMArena) | 1666 | – |
| LiveBench 2.0 Coding | LiveBench | 96.0%† | – |
| Code Migration | Vals AI | 44.2% | – |
| Code Migration v1.1 | Vals AI | 67.5% | – |
| Vibe Code Bench v1.1 | Vals AI | 87.7% | 89.1% |
| CursorBench | Cursor | 47.7% | – |
| ALE-Bench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 1622 | – |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 33.8% | 65.2% |
| Startrise Frontend | Startrise | 74.2%† | – |
| FrontierCode 1.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 43.7% | 48.5% |
| FrontierCode 2.0 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 28.5% | 40.6% |
| Agents & tools | |||
| APEX-Agents | Mercor | 69.8% | – |
| LiveBench Long Agentic | LiveBench | 40.9%† | – |
| LiveBench Browser | LiveBench | 67.2%† | – |
Show all 72 benchmarks
| Metric | Publisher | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max) | Gemini 4 Carbon (high) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agents & tools | |||
| GDPval-AA v2.1, normalised score | Artificial Analysis | 62.3% | – |
| GDPval-AA v2.1 | Artificial Analysis | 1746 | 1733 |
| Finance Agent v2 | Vals AI | 57.0% | – |
| Finance Agent v2.1 | Vals AI | 62.9% | 67.2% |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1.1 | Vals AI | 14.2% | 17.5% |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1 | Vals AI | 9.2% | – |
| Legal Research Bench | Vals AI | 45.2% | 55.8% |
| Tax Agent Bench | Vals AI | 44.4% | 48.9% |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals) | Vals AI | 31.8% | 63.1% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Andon Labs | – | 16484.2† |
| AutomationBench | Artificial Analysis | 66.6% | 77.8% |
| GDP.pdf (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 17.2% | 28.4% |
| AA-Briefcase v1.1 | Artificial Analysis | 1570 | 1609 |
| Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 12.9% | 64.8% |
| CWE-Bench (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 69.2% | – |
| DeepSec-Bench (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 24.9% | – |
| CyberGym end-to-end (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 76.3% | – |
| Maths | |||
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 71.2% | – |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 46.3% | – |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 99.4% | – |
| Knowledge | |||
| SimpleQA Verified | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 42.5% | – |
| LiveBench 2.0 Data Analysis | LiveBench | 79.5%† | – |
| LiveBench Research | LiveBench | 79.5%† | – |
| AA-Omniscience v1.1 | Artificial Analysis | 0.9 | 53.5 |
| PRBench Finance | Scale AI SEAL | 47.1%† | – |
| PRBench Legal | Scale AI SEAL | 47.3%† | – |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark | Vals AI | 61.8% | – |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1 | Vals AI | 69.2% | 76.5% |
| DrugDiscoveryBench | Scale AI SEAL | 60.6%† | – |
| AA-Omniscience v1.1: accuracy | Artificial Analysis | 39.6% | 58.3% |
| AA-Omniscience v1.1: non-hallucination | Artificial Analysis | 35.9% | 88.6% |
| Instruction following | |||
| MultiChallenge | Scale AI SEAL | 74.9%† | – |
| Multimodal | |||
| LiveBench Design | LiveBench | 83.4%† | – |
| MMMU-Pro | Artificial Analysis | 80.6% | – |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | – | 58.6%† |
| Long context | |||
| AA-LCR v1.1 | Artificial Analysis | 82.7% | 79.3% |
| MLCR | Artificial Analysis | 26.7% | – |
| Composite | |||
| LiveBench 2.0 | LiveBench | 74.0%† | – |
| AA Intelligence Index v5.0 | Artificial Analysis | 32.5 | 59.4 |
| AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2 | Artificial Analysis | 45.1 | – |
| AA Progress Index v1 | Artificial Analysis | 323.7 | 351.6 |
| Vals Index | Vals AI | 61.3 | 70.4 |
| Vals Finance Index | Vals AI | 60.9% | 66.3% |
| Vals Router Index | Vals AI | 61.3%† | – |
| AA Cyber Index | Artificial Analysis | 56.8 | – |
| Safety & honesty | |||
| FORTRESS | Scale AI SEAL | 27.2%† | – |
| Metadata | |||
| AA Openness Index | Artificial Analysis | 44.4 | – |
Data as of 2026-10-29. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.
What changed
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max): 4 new results (SciCode, APEX-Agents, CursorBench…); 1 score revision.
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max): BenchLeader Index 61.8 → 59.0.
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max): 5 new results (AA Intelligence Index v5.0, AA Progress Index v1, HLE-Diamond (AA)…); 4 score revisions; cost per task moved from $0.26/M to $0.60/M (130% up).
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max): BenchLeader Index 61.3 → 61.8.
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max): 10 new results (MLCR, AA Cyber Index, CWE-Bench (AA)…).
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max): 11 new results (GPQA Diamond, FrontierMath Tiers 1–3, FrontierMath Tier 4…).
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max): 1 new result (FrontierCode 1.1 (AA)); 2 score revisions.
Related comparisons
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 vs Claude Opus 5.5
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 vs GPT-6 Astra
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 vs GPT-6.1 Sol
- Gemini 4 Carbon vs Claude Opus 5.5
- Gemini 4 Carbon vs GPT-6 Astra
- Gemini 4 Carbon vs GPT-6.1 Sol
- Gemini 4 Carbon vs Claude Fable 5.1
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 vs Gemini 4 Argon
Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for coding · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 vs Gemini 4 Carbon: questions
- Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 better than Gemini 4 Carbon?
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (max) and Gemini 4 Carbon (high) are neck and neck on quality (59.3 vs 65.3, within the ±7.2 margin). The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; the two are within the margin of error as of 29 Oct 2026, so check the category scores for your use.
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 vs Gemini 4 Carbon: which is cheaper, and will that change?
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 is cheaper today: $0.525 against $8.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
- Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 or Gemini 4 Carbon better for coding?
- Gemini 4 Carbon scores higher in coding (72 vs 63 on the category index, where 50 is average). On FrontierCode 2.0 (AA), the top shared coding benchmark, it is 28.5% for DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 against 40.6% for Gemini 4 Carbon.
- Which is faster, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 or Gemini 4 Carbon?
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 streams ~1.5× faster (179 vs 98 output tokens per second, Artificial Analysis 7-day median).
- Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash the same as DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017?
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 is the checkpoint compared here (BenchLeader Index 59.3); people searching for DeepSeek V4.1 Flash land on this page because it replaced that earlier build.
More questions (4)
- Which is better for long documents?
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 scores higher on long-context benchmarks (66 vs 65). Both take about 1M tokens: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 1,048,576, Gemini 4 Carbon 1,000,000.
- Which has lower latency?
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 answers first: 12.4 s against 103.1 s to the first answer token, as Artificial Analysis measures it. Reasoning effort drives most of this: a higher setting thinks longer before it answers.
- Do independent benchmarks agree on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 vs Gemini 4 Carbon?
- Across the 26 benchmarks both have, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 leads 2, Gemini 4 Carbon leads 24. Every overall index that rates both puts Gemini 4 Carbon ahead.
- When was Gemini 4 Carbon released?
- Gemini 4 Carbon was released on 28 Oct 2026.