Gemini 3 Pro Turbo vs o4 Max: which model should you choose?
We compared Gemini 3 Pro Turbo and o4 Max on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Gemini 3 Pro Turbo has the stronger average benchmark score; Gemini 3 Pro Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Gemini 3 Pro Turbo
Gemini 3 Pro Turbo is a frontier model from Google DeepMind. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $19.62 per million input tokens and $89.91 per million output tokens, and averages 86.4 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $19.62 / 1M
- Output
- $89.91 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 86.4
- Open weights
- No
o4 Max
o4 Max is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 2,000,000-token context window, costs $19.51 per million input tokens and $93.98 per million output tokens, and averages 86.2 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $19.51 / 1M
- Output
- $93.98 / 1M
- Context
- 2,000,000
- Avg score
- 86.2
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Gemini 3 Pro Turbo | o4 Max | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $19.62 | $19.51 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $89.91 | $93.98 | A |
| Context window | 400,000 | 2,000,000 | B |
| Max output | 16,384 | 65,536 | B |
| Average score | 86.4 | 86.2 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1494.9 | 1486.0 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Gemini 3 Pro Turbo wins 8, o4 Max wins 4, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Pro Turbo | o4 Max | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 85.6 | 86.3 | 0.7 | o4 Max |
| GPQA Diamond | 81.0 | 80.1 | 0.9 | Gemini 3 Pro Turbo |
| SWE-bench Verified | 77.4 | 79.8 | 2.4 | o4 Max |
| HumanEval | 90.3 | 94.6 | 4.3 | o4 Max |
| MATH-500 | 92.4 | 90.6 | 1.8 | Gemini 3 Pro Turbo |
| AIME 2025 | 82.8 | 84.8 | 2.0 | o4 Max |
| LiveCodeBench | 82.7 | 80.6 | 2.1 | Gemini 3 Pro Turbo |
| IFEval | 93.4 | 91.1 | 2.3 | Gemini 3 Pro Turbo |
| TruthfulQA | 87.8 | 87.1 | 0.7 | Gemini 3 Pro Turbo |
| HellaSwag | 94.6 | 91.7 | 2.9 | Gemini 3 Pro Turbo |
| MMMU | 82.7 | 81.9 | 0.8 | Gemini 3 Pro Turbo |
| Arena Elo | 1494.9 | 1486.0 | 8.9 | Gemini 3 Pro Turbo |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Gemini 3 Pro Turbo costs about $37.19 per million tokens and o4 Max costs about $38.13. Gemini 3 Pro Turbo is roughly 2% cheaper than o4 Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
o4 Max has the larger context window at 2,000,000 tokens, compared with 400,000 for Gemini 3 Pro Turbo. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Gemini 3 Pro Turbo wins 8, o4 Max wins 4, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Gemini 3 Pro Turbo leads o4 Max by 0.2 points (86.4 versus 86.2).
The price picture favours Gemini 3 Pro Turbo. The context picture favours o4 Max. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.
If you need a single default, start with Gemini 3 Pro Turbo for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose Gemini 3 Pro Turbo if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
Choose o4 Max if
- You need the larger 2,000,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 65,536-token output limit.
FAQ
Is Gemini 3 Pro Turbo better than o4 Max?
On the index average, Gemini 3 Pro Turbo leads o4 Max by 0.2 points (86.4 versus 86.2). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Gemini 3 Pro Turbo wins 8 benchmarks, o4 Max wins 4.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3 Pro Turbo or o4 Max?
Gemini 3 Pro Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $37.19 per million tokens, versus $38.13 for o4 Max.
Which has the larger context window?
o4 Max has the larger context window at 2,000,000 tokens. Gemini 3 Pro Turbo has 400,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Gemini 3 Pro Turbo is proprietary; o4 Max is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Gemini 3 Pro Turbo for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.