Gemini 3.8 Flash vs GPT-5.6 Sol
Arena Text · creative writing Arena Text · creative writing: Human pairwise preferences in the stated text vote pool
Gemini 3.8 Flash · high1,487
GPT-5.6 Sol · xhigh1,469
EQ-Bench Longform Creative Writing 1.11 Longform Creative Writing 1.11: Models plan, revise and write a story across eight turns, graded with a writing rubric
Gemini 3.8 Flash76.8
GPT-5.6 Sol81.7
EQ-Bench Creative Writing v3 Creative Writing v3 · Elo: Judge-rated creative writing under the v3 prompt set and pairwise ranking
Gemini 3.8 Flash1,747.9
GPT-5.6 Sol1,971.6
Lech Mazur Short-Story Lech Mazur Short-Story · comparison score: Judges compare stories written to ten required elements; the comparison score can be negative
Gemini 3.8 Flash · high0.1
GPT-5.6 Sol · xhigh2.5
IFBench (instructions) IFBench (instructions): Checks whether the model follows precise formatting and content instructions
Gemini 3.8 Flash—
GPT-5.6 Sol69.6
Harvey LAB-AA 1.1 Harvey LAB-AA 1.1: Legal agents work from case documents; every rubric criterion must pass and material hallucinations receive no credit
Gemini 3.8 Flash · high0
GPT-5.6 Sol—
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.8 Flash | GPT-5.6 Sol |
|---|---|---|
| Arena Text · creative writing | 1,487 · high | 1,469 · xhigh |
| EQ-Bench Longform Creative Writing 1.11 | 76.8 | 81.7 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing v3 | 1,747.9 | 1,971.6 |
| Lech Mazur Short-Story | 0.1 · high | 2.5 · xhigh |
| IFBench (instructions) | — | 69.6 |
| Harvey LAB-AA 1.1 | 0 · high | — |
Specs
| Spec | Gemini 3.8 Flash | GPT-5.6 Sol |
|---|---|---|
| Input, per 1M | !$0.75 | $4 |
| Output, per 1M | !$3.75 | $20 |
| Cost per task? | $0.93 | $0.50 |
| Speed, tok/s | — | 85 |
| Context | 1M | 1.05M |
| Weights | Closed | Closed |
| Released | Sep 2026 | Jul 2026 |
| See images | ✓ | ✓ |
| Read PDFs | ✓ | Partial |
| Hear audio | ✓ | — |
| Watch video | ✓ | — |
| Call tools | ✓ | ✓ |
| Force a tool call | Partial | Partial |
| Return strict JSON | ✓ | ✓ |
| Search the web | ✓ | ? |
| Run code | ✓ | ? |
| Use a computer | ? | ? |
What breaks when you switch
Gemini 3.8 Flash → GPT-5.6 Sol
Nothing known.
GPT-5.6 Sol → Gemini 3.8 Flash
Context: 1.05M → 1M
Sampling parameters are ignored›
temperature, top_p and top_k are ignored now and will cause HTTP 400 in future generations; remove them from requests.
No minimal thinking level›
The minimal thinking level returns an error; avoid minimal.