Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Gemini 4 Argon
Benchmarks, API Token Pricing, Context Window & Speed Comparison
Related topics (4)
Compare Gemini 3.8 Flash by Google against Gemini 4 Argon by Google across real-world coding, reasoning, token economics, and latency.
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Gemini 3.8 Flash
Latest Stable FlashThe definitive stable Flash release of late 2026 powering Gemini Advanced and Google Workspace.
$0.75 / 1M
$3.75 / 1M
1.05M tokens
74.8%
Gemini 4 Argon
1M Output Multimodal KingGoogle DeepMind's flagship frontier reasoning engine featuring 1-million-token output limits, autonomous cybersecurity defense, and real-time audio/vision ingestion.
$2.00 / 1M
$10.00 / 1M
1M tokens
81.9%
Key Differences at a Glance
- Gemini 3.8 Flash is 2.5x cheaper for API usage (input + output tokens combined).
- Gemini 3.8 Flash has a larger context window (1M vs 1M tokens).
- Gemini 3.8 Flash is faster at 175 tok/s vs 115 tok/s.
- Gemini 4 Argon leads on SWE-bench coding (81.9% vs 74.8%).
| Feature | Gemini 3.8 Flash | Gemini 4 Argon |
|---|---|---|
Intelligence Index Composite reasoning & knowledge score (0-100) | 87 | 97 |
Provider | ||
Input Price Cost per million input tokens | $0.75 / 1M | $2.00 / 1M |
Output Price Cost per million output tokens | $3.75 / 1M | $10.00 / 1M |
Blended Price Weighted 7:2:1 cache:input:output per 1M | $0.66 / 1M | $1.47 / 1M |
Context Window Maximum input + output tokens | 1.05M tokens~1,573 A4 pages of text | 1M tokens~1,500 A4 pages of text |
Max Output Tokens Per single request | 66K | 1000K |
Throughput Speed Tokens generated per second | 175 tok/s | 115 tok/s |
SWE-bench Verified Real-world software engineering | 74.8% | 81.9% |
GPQA Diamond Graduate-level reasoning | 84% | 81.5% |
Cached Input Price Prompt caching discount per 1M tokens | $0.19 / 1M | $0.10 / 1M |
Who Wins Where?
At-a-glance decision frameworkEmpirical Head-to-Head Benchmark Scores
Official evaluation metrics verified by independent third-party research labs.
Industry benchmark evaluating real-world GitHub issue resolution and multi-file debugging.
Challenging questions created by domain experts to test complex PhD-level reasoning.
Hardened reasoning and academic knowledge benchmark with reduced lucky-guess probability.
Crowdsourced human preference evaluation based on blind, head-to-head model battles.
Extremely difficult, closed-ended questions spanning the frontier of human expert knowledge.
Autonomous multi-step tasks executed inside a real command-line terminal environment.
Research-grade coding problems drawn from real scientific and numerical workloads.
Contamination-free competitive programming problems collected continuously over time.
American Invitational Mathematics Examination — multi-step Olympiad-level reasoning.
Accuracy when reasoning over very large inputs that fill the model context window.
Tokens emitted per second during active generation streaming.
Latency & Response Time
Time to first token (TTFT) and estimated end-to-end response time for a typical 500-token response.
Real-Time Interactive Token Cost Simulator
Adjust sliders to calculate projected monthly cloud API spending with prompt caching discounts.
Gemini 3.8 Flash · Strengths & Key Advantages
- Default production model for Google Workspace enterprise
- Superb balance of speed, intelligence, and price
- Deep multimodal grounding across 1M tokens
Considerations & Trade-offs
- Preceded in max output capacity by Gemini 4 Argon
- Higher rate limits apply during peak cloud hours
Gemini 4 Argon · Strengths & Key Advantages
- Groundbreaking 1,000,000 token maximum output generation capacity via Long Decode Continuation
- 1M-token input window with 99.7% GraphWalks recall (84.2% in the 256K-1M range)
- Native processing of full audio, video streams, and visual data (91.7% on LVBench)
- Half the token price of Anthropic's Opus 5.5 and #1 on Chatbot Arena (1525 Elo)
Considerations & Trade-offs
- Massive token outputs can incur high absolute costs if unconstrained (~62K output tokens per index task)
- $2/$10 pricing is an introductory 50% discount; standard rates revert to $4/$20 once the promotion ends
Token Use & Task Economics
Estimated cost and token consumption to complete one representative agentic task.
| Metric | Gemini 3.8 Flash | Gemini 4 Argon |
|---|---|---|
Cost per Task Estimated USD to finish one task | $1.20 | $2.45 |
Output Tokens / Task Tokens generated per task | 44K | 75K |
Reasoning Tokens / Task Thinking tokens burned per task | 21K | 36K |
Technical Specifications
Architecture, release timeline, capabilities, and modalities.
| Feature | Gemini 3.8 Flash | Gemini 4 Argon |
|---|---|---|
| Official API Model ID (SDK) | models/gemini-3-8-flash | models/gemini-4-argon |
| API Protocol | Google Gemini API (generateContent) + OpenAI-Compatible SDK | Google Gemini API (generateContent) + OpenAI-Compatible SDK |
| Release Date | 2026-09 | 2026-09 |
| Knowledge Cutoff | June 2026 | June 2026 |
| Architecture | Late-2026 optimized sparse multimodal transformer | Pathways Multimodal Sparse Mixture-of-Experts |
| Parameters | Confidential | Confidential |
| Enterprise Rate Limits (RPM / TPM) | 10,000 – 30,000 RPM (Tier 5 Enterprise) · 4,000,000 – 10,000,000 TPM | 10,000 – 30,000 RPM (Tier 5 Enterprise) · 4,000,000 – 10,000,000 TPM |
| Long-Context Tier (>128K/200K) | Standard rate up to 200K tokens; 2x input/output tier above 200K tokens | Standard rate up to 200K tokens; 2x input/output tier above 200K tokens |
| Prompt Cache Policy & TTL | Implicit + Explicit Context Caching at $0.1875/1M with configurable TTL | Implicit + Explicit Context Caching at $0.1/1M with configurable TTL |
| Computer Use / GUI Agent | Supported (Screen coordinate grounding, browser & desktop GUI action loops) | Supported (Screen coordinate grounding, browser & desktop GUI action loops) |
| MCP & Parallel Tool Calling | Native MCP Client/Server ready · Parallel function calling · 100% Strict JSON Schema | Native MCP Client/Server ready · Parallel function calling · 100% Strict JSON Schema |
| Web Search Grounding & Sandbox | Built-in Google Search Grounding + Managed Python Code Execution Sandbox | Built-in Google Search Grounding + Managed Python Code Execution Sandbox |
| Official Fine-Tuning Support | Vertex AI Supervised Adapter Tuning & Context Distillation | Vertex AI Supervised Adapter Tuning & Context Distillation |
| Multimodal Token Billing | Text BPE (~4 chars/token) · Vision (~258–765 tokens per image tile) · Audio (~25–32 tokens/sec) · Video (~258–300 tokens/sec) | Text BPE (~4 chars/token) · Vision (~258–765 tokens per image tile) · Audio (~25–32 tokens/sec) · Video (~258–300 tokens/sec) |
| Quantization & Min GPU VRAM | Cloud-Hosted Proprietary (FP8 / BF16 Tensor Core Cluster) · Zero Local VRAM Required (100% Serverless Cloud API) | Cloud-Hosted Proprietary (FP8 / BF16 Tensor Core Cluster) · Zero Local VRAM Required (100% Serverless Cloud API) |
| Safety & Frontier Classification | Google DeepMind Frontier Safety Framework Verified | Google DeepMind Frontier Safety Framework Verified |
| Enterprise Compliance (ZDR/HIPAA/SOC2) | SOC2 Type II · GDPR · Zero Data Retention (ZDR) & HIPAA BAA Available on Enterprise Tier | SOC2 Type II · GDPR · Zero Data Retention (ZDR) & HIPAA BAA Available on Enterprise Tier |
| Input Modalities | text, vision, audio, video | text, vision, audio, video |
| Output Modalities | text | text |
Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Gemini 4 Argon: Quick Answers
Which is more intelligent, Gemini 3.8 Flash or Gemini 4 Argon?
Gemini 4 Argon is more intelligent. It scores 97 compared with 87 on the composite Intelligence Index.
Which model is faster?
Gemini 3.8 Flash is faster, generating 175 tokens per second compared with 115 tokens per second.
Which model is cheaper to run?
Gemini 3.8 Flash is cheaper at $0.66 per 1M tokens blended, compared with $1.47 (7:2:1 cache:input:output ratio).
Which model has lower latency?
Gemini 3.8 Flash has lower latency, with a time to first token of 0.39s compared with 0.85s.
Which model has a larger context window?
Gemini 3.8 Flash has a larger context window, supporting 1.05M tokens compared with 1M tokens.
Verdict
Choose Gemini 3.8 Flash for enterprise document synthesis, general coding, and high-quality voice/vision workflows, or choose Gemini 4 Argon for whole-repository code generation, full-book synthesis, video understanding, and multi-hour audio processing.
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper: Gemini 3.8 Flash or Gemini 4 Argon?+
Gemini 3.8 Flash costs $0.75/1M input and $3.75/1M output tokens, while Gemini 4 Argon costs $2/1M input and $10/1M output tokens.
Which model has a larger context window: Gemini 3.8 Flash or Gemini 4 Argon?+
Gemini 3.8 Flash supports 1.0M tokens whereas Gemini 4 Argon supports 1M tokens.
Understand key metrics like context window, token pricing, reasoning mode, and SWE-bench scores in our comprehensive AI glossary.
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Benchmark scores, token prices, and rate limits evolve rapidly as AI labs release model updates. Always verify current specifications and pricing on the official provider documentation.
Sources: Google & Google Official Documentation