DeepSeek-R1 vs DeepSeek V3

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

DeepSeek-R1 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 36 to 25. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

DeepSeek-R1's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 65.9 against 42. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is AIME 2024, 79.8% to 39.2%. DeepSeek V3 does hit back in mathematics, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

DeepSeek-R1 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.55 input / $2.19 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.27 input / $1.10 output per 1M tokens for DeepSeek V3. DeepSeek-R1 is the reasoning model in the pair, while DeepSeek V3 is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use.

Quick Verdict

Pick DeepSeek-R1 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. DeepSeek V3 only becomes the better choice if mathematics is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.

Agentic

Coming soon

Benchmark data for this category is coming soon.

Coding

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1

65.9

DeepSeek V3

42

36%
HumanEval
Coming soon
65.9%
LiveCodeBench
Coming soon
49.2%
SWE-bench Verified
42%

Multimodal & Grounded

Coming soon

Benchmark data for this category is coming soon.

Reasoning

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1

35.6

DeepSeek V3

24.9

30.1%
SimpleQA
24.9%
40%
MuSR
Coming soon

Knowledge

DeepSeek V3

DeepSeek-R1

68.9

DeepSeek V3

69.6

90.8%
MMLU
88.5%
71.5%
GPQA
59.1%
41%
SuperGPQA
Coming soon
39%
OpenBookQA
Coming soon
84%
MMLU-Pro
75.9%

Instruction Following

Coming soon

Comparable scores for this category are coming soon. One or both models do not have sourced results here yet.

83.3%
IFEval
Coming soon

Multilingual

Coming soon

Benchmark data for this category is coming soon.

Mathematics

DeepSeek V3

DeepSeek-R1

78.3

DeepSeek V3

90.2

44%
AIME 2023
Coming soon
79.8%
AIME 2024
39.2%
45%
AIME 2025
Coming soon
40%
HMMT Feb 2023
Coming soon
42%
HMMT Feb 2024
Coming soon
41%
HMMT Feb 2025
Coming soon
43%
BRUMO 2025
Coming soon
97.3%
MATH-500
90.2%

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, DeepSeek-R1 or DeepSeek V3?

DeepSeek-R1 is ahead overall, 36 to 25. The biggest single separator in this matchup is AIME 2024, where the scores are 79.8% and 39.2%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, DeepSeek-R1 or DeepSeek V3?

DeepSeek V3 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 69.6 versus 68.9. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, DeepSeek-R1 or DeepSeek V3?

DeepSeek-R1 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 65.9 versus 42. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, DeepSeek-R1 or DeepSeek V3?

DeepSeek V3 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 90.2 versus 78.3. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, DeepSeek-R1 or DeepSeek V3?

DeepSeek-R1 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 35.6 versus 24.9. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 17, 2026

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