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Gemini 4 Carbon vs Muse Spark 1.2

Full profiles: Gemini 4 Carbon (Google) and Muse Spark 1.2 (Meta): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated · Data from 7 sources

As of 29 Oct 2026, Gemini 4 Carbon and Muse Spark 1.2 are neck and neck on quality (65.1 vs 61.6 on the BenchLeader Index, inside the ±7.8 margin), and Muse Spark 1.2 is 4.0× cheaper at $2.00 vs $8.00 per 1M tokens blended. Gemini 4 Carbon leads in every category we measure both in. Muse Spark 1.2 streams 3×+ faster.

Key facts (as of 29 Oct 2026)

  • Gemini 4 Carbon scores 65.1 on the BenchLeader Index and Muse Spark 1.2 scores 61.6 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).
  • Gemini 4 Carbon costs $8.00 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 29 Oct 2026).
  • Muse Spark 1.2 costs $2.00 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 29 Oct 2026).
  • Muse Spark 1.2 streams 3×+ faster than Gemini 4 Carbon (Artificial Analysis, 7-day median, 29 Oct 2026).
  • Of the 13 benchmarks both models have, Gemini 4 Carbon leads 13 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).
Gemini 4 Carbon benchmarks high Google Muse Spark 1.2 benchmarks xhigh MetaOpen in the comparison tool

Which 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 casePickWhyConfidence
CodingGemini 4 Carbon72 vs 55 category score; SciCode 64.2% vs 57.4%High
ReasoningGemini 4 Carbon79 vs 68 category score; Humanity's Last Exam (AA) 60.4% vs 45.5%High
KnowledgeGemini 4 Carbon76 vs 65 category scoreHigh
Long documentsEither65 vs 64 category score; AA-LCR v1.1 79.3% vs 79.0%Either
Chat quality (human preference)–Only Muse Spark 1.2 has an Arena rating (69 category score)Not comparable
Lowest costMuse Spark 1.2$2.00 vs $8.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.092 vs $0.320–
Fastest first answerMuse Spark 1.218.2 s (Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh)) vs 103.1 s (Gemini 4 Carbon (high)) to the first answer token–
High volume on a budgetNeither flagshipA smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs–

Key differences

  • Gemini 4 Carbon (high) and Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh) are neck and neck on quality (65.1 vs 61.6, within the ±7.8 margin).
  • Gemini 4 Carbon (high) is stronger in coding, knowledge, long context, reasoning.
  • Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh) is stronger in agents & tools, human preference, maths, multimodal.
  • Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh) is 4.0× cheaper ($2.00 vs $8.00 per 1M blended).
  • Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh) streams 3.6× faster (361 vs 100 tokens per second).

At a glance

SpecGemini 4 CarbonMuse Spark 1.2
DeveloperGoogleMeta
Released28 Oct 20265 Aug 2026
Context window (tokens)1,000,0001,048,576
Compared atGemini 4 Carbon (high)Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh)
Open weightsNoNo
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$4.00 / $20.00 / –$1.25 / $4.25 / $0.150

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.

CategoryGemini 4 Carbon (high)Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh)Leader
Reasoning78.968.0Gemini 4 Carbon
Coding71.755.1Gemini 4 Carbon
Agents & tools–55.7not comparable
Maths–67.2not comparable
Knowledge75.864.7Gemini 4 Carbon
Human preference–68.5not comparable
Multimodal–65.2not comparable
Long context64.564.3level

Where sources disagree

Across the 13 benchmarks both have, Gemini 4 Carbon leads 13, Muse Spark 1.2 leads 0.

Overall indexGemini 4 Carbon (high)Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh)Leader
BenchLeader Index65.161.6neck and neck

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.

MeasureGemini 4 Carbon (high)Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh)
Blended price per 1M tokens$8.00$2.00
Input / output per 1M$4.00 / $20.00$1.25 / $4.25
Cached input per 1M–$0.150
Price per task: chat reply$0.0076$0.0018
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.060$0.018
Price per task: code edit$0.054$0.014
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.320$0.092
Price per task: structured extraction$0.012$0.0034
Cost to run a full benchmark suite$7.76–
Output speed100 tok/s361 tok/s
Time to first answer103.1 s18.2 s
Time to a complete answer108.1 s19.6 s

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Gemini 4 Carbon (high) scores 65.1 and takes 103 s to its first answer token. Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh) scores 61.6 and takes 18 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

89 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.

MetricPublisherGemini 4 Carbon (high)Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh)
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader65.161.6
Coding scoreBenchLeader71.755.1
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader75.864.7
Long context scoreBenchLeader64.564.3
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader78.968.0
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader–55.7
Human preference scoreBenchLeader–68.5
Maths scoreBenchLeader–67.2
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader–65.2
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$8.00$2.00
Output speedBenchLeader100 tok/s361 tok/s
Time to first answerBenchLeader103.1 s18.2 s
Context windowBenchLeader1,000,000 tokens1,048,576 tokens
Reasoning
SimpleBenchSimpleBench–74.5%†
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)–1512
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench–90.0%
GPQA Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis–90.4%
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis60.4%45.5%
HLE-Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis69.1%–
CritPtArtificial Analysis36.0%17.7%
CritPt v2 hard subset (AA)Artificial Analysis63.0%–
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–27.0%
LMCAEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–48.4%
DTBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–94.7%
Coding
SciCodeSciCode64.2%57.4%
WeirdMLWeirdML–60.3%
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)–1541
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)–1534
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench–77.5%
IOIVals AI–21.8%
SWE-bench (Vals)Vals AI–86.6%
Code MigrationVals AI–29.9%
ProgramBenchVals AI–0.5%
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI89.1%79.1%
DeepSWE v1.1Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub–54.9%
FrontierSWEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–12.0%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis65.2%7.1%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis–80.2%
Show all 89 benchmarks
MetricPublisherGemini 4 Carbon (high)Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh)
Coding
Startrise FrontendStartrise–70.3%†
FrontierCode 1.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis48.5%–
FrontierCode 2.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis40.6%–
Agents & tools
APEX-AgentsMercor–45.4%†
Arena AgentArena (LMArena)–-7
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench–57.6%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)Vals AI–69.7%
τ³-Banking (AA)Artificial Analysis–34.9%
CyberBenchVals AI–69.5%
Finance Agent v2Vals AI–60.6%
Finance Agent v2.1Vals AI67.2%–
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1.1Vals AI17.5%–
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1Vals AI–25.4%
Legal Research BenchVals AI55.8%43.8%
SkillsBenchVals AI–53.0%
SREBenchVals AI–0.0%
Tax Agent BenchVals AI48.9%32.8%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)Vals AI63.1%6.1%
Vending-Bench 2Andon Labs16484.2†–
AutomationBenchArtificial Analysis77.8%40.6%
GDP.pdf (AA)Artificial Analysis28.4%17.4%
EnterpriseOps-GymArtificial Analysis–47.3%
AA-Briefcase v1.1Artificial Analysis16091325
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis64.8%–
Maths
ProofBenchVals AI–43.0%†
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench–91.2%
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)–1491
Knowledge
SimpleQA VerifiedEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–60.3%
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench–76.5%
AA-Omniscience v1.1Artificial Analysis53.5–
MMLU-ProVals AI–88.3%
LegalBenchVals AI–85.3%
CorpFinVals AI–70.9%
TaxEvalVals AI–80.4%
BioMysteryBenchVals AI–64.8%
Excel Modeling BenchmarkVals AI–57.0%
Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1Vals AI76.5%–
MedCodeVals AI–49.4%
MedScribeVals AI–90.1%
Public Benefits Bench v1.1Vals AI–68.5%
GDP.pdfEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–16.0%
AA-Omniscience v1.1: accuracyArtificial Analysis58.3%–
AA-Omniscience v1.1: non-hallucinationArtificial Analysis88.6%–
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench–78.6%
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench–74.3%
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)–1472
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)–1491
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)–1439
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)–1511
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)–1488
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)–1304
MMMU-Pro (Vals)Vals AI–86.1%
MortgageTaxVals AI–65.4%
Blueprint-Bench 2Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub58.6%†–
Long context
AA-LCR v1.1Artificial Analysis79.3%79.0%
MLCRArtificial Analysis–7.2%
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–155.1†
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench–78.0%
AA Intelligence Index v5.0Artificial Analysis59.4–
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis–39.6
AA Progress Index v1Artificial Analysis351.6309.1
Vals IndexVals AI70.4–
Vals Finance IndexVals AI66.3%–
Vals Multimodal IndexVals AI–69.8%†

Data as of 2026-10-29. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.

What changed

  • Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh): BenchLeader Index 62.2 → 61.6.
  • Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh): 1 new result (AA Progress Index v1).
  • Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh): cost per task moved from $1.29/M to $0.81/M (37% down).
  • Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh): cost per task moved from $0.97/M to $1.29/M (32% up).
  • Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh): 1 new result (AA-Briefcase v1.1).
  • Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh): 1 new result (Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1).
  • Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh): 2 score revisions.
  • Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh): 4 new results (AutomationBench, GDP.pdf (AA), MLCR…).
  • Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh): 3 new results (Chess Puzzles, ProgramBench, SREBench); 1 score revision.
  • Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh): 3 score revisions.

Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for coding · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs

Gemini 4 Carbon vs Muse Spark 1.2: questions

Is Gemini 4 Carbon better than Muse Spark 1.2?
Gemini 4 Carbon (high) and Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh) are neck and neck on quality (65.1 vs 61.6, within the ±7.8 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.
Gemini 4 Carbon vs Muse Spark 1.2: which is cheaper, and will that change?
Muse Spark 1.2 is cheaper today: $2.00 against $8.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
Is Gemini 4 Carbon or Muse Spark 1.2 better for coding?
Gemini 4 Carbon scores higher in coding (72 vs 55 on the category index, where 50 is average). On SciCode, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 64.2% for Gemini 4 Carbon against 57.4% for Muse Spark 1.2.
Which is faster, Gemini 4 Carbon or Muse Spark 1.2?
Muse Spark 1.2 streams 3×+ faster (361 vs 100 output tokens per second, Artificial Analysis 7-day median).
Which is better for long documents?
They are level on long-context benchmarks (65 vs 64). Both take about 1M tokens: Gemini 4 Carbon 1,000,000, Muse Spark 1.2 1,048,576.
More questions (3)
Which has lower latency?
Muse Spark 1.2 answers first: 18.2 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 Gemini 4 Carbon vs Muse Spark 1.2?
Across the 13 benchmarks both have, Gemini 4 Carbon leads 13, Muse Spark 1.2 leads 0.
When was Gemini 4 Carbon released?
Gemini 4 Carbon was released on 28 Oct 2026.