DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Step 5 Preview
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 
Step 5 Preview Verdict
- Step 5 Preview leads on quality: 65.0 vs 61.9.
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (max) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, multimodal.
- Step 5 Preview is stronger in composite, knowledge, long context, reasoning.
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (max) is 5.4× cheaper ($0.262 vs $1.43 per 1M blended).
| Metric | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (max) | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | 61.9 | 65.0 |
| Agents & tools score | 59.6 | – |
| Coding score | 68.9 | – |
| Composite score | 74.5 | 84.4 |
| Knowledge score | 61.7 | 72.0 |
| Long context score | 68.5 | 70.8 |
| Multimodal score | 61.4 | 60.8 |
| Reasoning score | 69.5 | 82.1 |
| Blended price $/M | $0.262 | $1.43 |
| Output speed | 215 tok/s | – |
| Time to first answer | 10.5 s | – |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| LMArena WebDev | 1614 | – |
| LMArena Agent | 4.9 | – |
| LiveBench | 81.1% | – |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 86.7% | – |
| LiveBench Coding | 80.0% | – |
| LiveBench Agentic Coding | 77.3% | – |
| LiveBench Mathematics | 93.3% | – |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 79.3% | – |
| LiveBench Language | 81.2% | – |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 70.0% | – |
| AA Intelligence Index | 39.5 | 43.6 |
| AA-LCR | 84.0% | 88.3% |
| MMMU-Pro | 77.0% | 76.4% |
| AA-Omniscience | -5.3 | 16.4 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (AA) | 39.3% | 46.5% |
| SciCode (AA) | 51.9% | 58.9% |
| CritPt | 14.3% | 20.9% |
| GDPval (AA) | 56.6% | 53.6% |
Data as of 2026-09-19. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Step 5 Preview: questions
- Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash better than Step 5 Preview?
- Step 5 Preview leads on quality: 65.0 vs 61.9. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; Step 5 Preview is ahead overall as of 2026-09-19, but check the category scores for your use.
- Which is cheaper, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Step 5 Preview?
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is cheaper: $0.262 against $1.43 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token.
- Which has the larger context window?
- Both accept 1M tokens of context.