Gemini 3 Flash vs Seed 1.6 Flash

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

Gemini 3 Flash is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 62 to 56. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Gemini 3 Flash's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 40.4 against 27.6. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Verified, 44 to 24.

Gemini 3 Flash is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.50 input / $3.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.08 input / $0.30 output per 1M tokens for Seed 1.6 Flash. That is roughly 10.0x on output cost alone. Seed 1.6 Flash is the reasoning model in the pair, while Gemini 3 Flash 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. Gemini 3 Flash gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 256K for Seed 1.6 Flash.

Quick Verdict

Pick Gemini 3 Flash if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Seed 1.6 Flash only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.

Agentic

Gemini 3 Flash

Gemini 3 Flash

57.5

Seed 1.6 Flash

54.5

56
Terminal-Bench 2.0
52
66
BrowseComp
62
53
OSWorld-Verified
52

Coding

Gemini 3 Flash

Gemini 3 Flash

40.4

Seed 1.6 Flash

27.6

62
HumanEval
59
44
SWE-bench Verified
24
36
LiveCodeBench
25
44
SWE-bench Pro
31

Multimodal & Grounded

Gemini 3 Flash

Gemini 3 Flash

79.6

Seed 1.6 Flash

73.1

80
MMMU-Pro
74
79
OfficeQA Pro
72

Reasoning

Gemini 3 Flash

Gemini 3 Flash

72

Seed 1.6 Flash

66.8

67
SimpleQA
61
65
MuSR
59
84
BBH
75
75
LongBench v2
70
76
MRCRv2
74

Knowledge

Gemini 3 Flash

Gemini 3 Flash

52.9

Seed 1.6 Flash

47.3

70
MMLU
65
69
GPQA
64
67
SuperGPQA
62
65
OpenBookQA
60
72
MMLU-Pro
65
6
HLE
3
65
FrontierScience
57

Instruction Following

Gemini 3 Flash

Gemini 3 Flash

85

Seed 1.6 Flash

81

85
IFEval
81

Multilingual

Gemini 3 Flash

Gemini 3 Flash

80.5

Seed 1.6 Flash

72.8

85
MGSM
76
78
MMLU-ProX
71

Mathematics

Gemini 3 Flash

Gemini 3 Flash

74

Seed 1.6 Flash

67.1

70
AIME 2023
64
72
AIME 2024
66
71
AIME 2025
65
66
HMMT Feb 2023
60
68
HMMT Feb 2024
62
67
HMMT Feb 2025
61
69
BRUMO 2025
63
80
MATH-500
72

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Gemini 3 Flash or Seed 1.6 Flash?

Gemini 3 Flash is ahead overall, 62 to 56. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 44 and 24.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Gemini 3 Flash or Seed 1.6 Flash?

Gemini 3 Flash has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 52.9 versus 47.3. Inside this category, FrontierScience is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Gemini 3 Flash or Seed 1.6 Flash?

Gemini 3 Flash has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 40.4 versus 27.6. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Gemini 3 Flash or Seed 1.6 Flash?

Gemini 3 Flash has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 74 versus 67.1. Inside this category, MATH-500 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Gemini 3 Flash or Seed 1.6 Flash?

Gemini 3 Flash has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 72 versus 66.8. Inside this category, BBH is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Gemini 3 Flash or Seed 1.6 Flash?

Gemini 3 Flash has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 57.5 versus 54.5. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Gemini 3 Flash or Seed 1.6 Flash?

Gemini 3 Flash has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.6 versus 73.1. Inside this category, OfficeQA Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Gemini 3 Flash or Seed 1.6 Flash?

Gemini 3 Flash has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 85 versus 81. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Gemini 3 Flash or Seed 1.6 Flash?

Gemini 3 Flash has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 80.5 versus 72.8. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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