Deepseek V3.2 Exp ThinkingvsStep 3.5 Flash
Deepseek V3.2 Exp Thinking leads the overall Podium Score by 1.0 points (71.0 vs 70.0).Category wins: Deepseek V3.2 Exp Thinking 0 — 0 Step 3.5 Flash.Deepseek V3.2 Exp Thinking is the cheaper pick ($1.1/M vs $3/M per 1M output tokens). Deepseek V3.2 Exp Thinking is faster (50 t/s vs 50 t/s).
Key VerdictAggregated 2026 Benchmark Analysis
Deepseek V3.2 Exp Thinking is rated higher overall with a Podium Score of 71.0 (vs 70.0 for Step 3.5 Flash). Both models show closely matched capabilities across domain benchmarks.
Coding & Engineering
Comparable
Inference Speed
Deepseek V3.2 Exp Thinking (50 t/s)
Cost Efficiency
Deepseek V3.2 Exp Thinking ($1.1/M/M)
| Metric | Deepseek V3.2 Exp Thinking | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Podium Score | 71.0 ▲ | 70.0 |
| Arena Elo | — | — |
| Intelligence Index | — | — |
| Coding | — | — |
| Math | — | — |
| Reasoning | — | — |
| Agentic | — | — |
| Knowledge | — | — |
| Multimodal | — | — |
| Long-context | — | — |
| Output speed | 50 t/s | 50 t/s |
| Output price | $1.1/M ▲ | $3/M |
| Context window | 128K | 128K |
Scores aggregated from five independent leaderboards. See Methodology. More head-to-heads: Deepseek V3.2 Exp T vs Claude Mythos · Deepseek V3.2 Exp T vs Claude Fable 5 · Deepseek V3.2 Exp T vs Kimi K3 · Deepseek V3.2 Exp T vs Claude Opus 5