Model comparison

DeepSeek-R1 vs Llama 3.1-8B

DeepSeek-R1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 23.0 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.1-8B costs 16× less per token, which makes it the better buy when DeepSeek-R1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 31 shared benchmarks.

DeepSeek-R1 DeepSeek

42.3

Rank #115 Confirmed

Llama 3.1-8B Meta

23.0

Rank #352 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 31 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek-R1 scores higher in 9 categories and Llama 3.1-8B in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where DeepSeek-R1 leads 44.5 to 8.0.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is MATH Level 5: 96.6% for DeepSeek-R1 and 22.9% for Llama 3.1-8B.
  • Llama 3.1-8B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $2.15 for DeepSeek-R1.
  • DeepSeek-R1 accepts more context: 164K tokens versus 128K.
  • Llama 3.1-8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

DeepSeek-R1 and Llama 3.1-8B specifications
DeepSeek-R1Llama 3.1-8B
ProviderDeepSeekMeta
Noometry Index42.323.0
Released2025-01-202024-07-23
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window164K128K
Max output64K4K
Input $ / M tokens$0.50$0.05
Output $ / M tokens$2.15$0.08
Results tracked5243

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Category by category

Coding DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 46.3 (#68), Llama 3.1-8B: 20.2 (#340)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Llama 3.1-8B
SciCode35.7%13.2%
WeirdML41.6%1.7%
LMArena Coding14271195
Aider Polyglot71.4%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—32.8%
LiveBench Coding66.7%—
BigCodeBench Complete—40.5%
ALE-Bench804.12—
AlgoTune1.7—
HumanEval+—62.8%
MBPP+—55.6%

Agentic & Tool Use DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 30.7 (#75), Llama 3.1-8B: 22.5 (#131)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Llama 3.1-8B
BALROG34.9%15.1%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—25.8%
DeepResearch Bench35.1%—
METR Time Horizons53.8%—

Reasoning DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 18.6 (#278), Llama 3.1-8B: 14.9 (#321)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Llama 3.1-8B
CritPt1.1%0%
LMArena Hard Prompts14161175
Epoch Capabilities Index141.29116.57
ARC-AGI-21.3%—
SimpleBench40.8%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark69.4%—
ARC-AGI-121.2%—
Chess Puzzles—0%
LiveBench Reasoning83.2%—
DTBench—50.9%
LiveBench Data Analysis69.8%—
LMCA—5.4%
ForecastBench60—
LiveBench71.6%—
PIQA—81.2%

Math DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 43.8 (#79), Llama 3.1-8B: 10.2 (#317)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Llama 3.1-8B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202566.4%1.7%
Omni-MATH42.4%13.7%
LMArena Math14001179
MATH Level 596.6%22.9%
LiveBench Math80.7%—
GSM8K—82.4%

Knowledge DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 44.5 (#87), Llama 3.1-8B: 8.0 (#307)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Llama 3.1-8B
GPQA Diamond76.3%27%
MMLU-Pro79.3%40.6%
GPQA (HELM)66.6%24.7%
LMArena Expert13941144
Confabulations12.7%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate11.3%—
BoolQ—82.8%
MMLU—56.1%

Multilingual DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 52.4 (#85), Llama 3.1-8B: 34.0 (#249)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Llama 3.1-8B
LMArena Non-English14121148
LMArena Chinese14421151
LMArena French14171177
LMArena German14041144
LMArena Japanese13911061
LMArena Korean13601053
LMArena Russian14231158
LMArena Spanish14111169

Instruction Following DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 72.0 (#143), Llama 3.1-8B: 58.9 (#258)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Llama 3.1-8B
IFEval78.4%74.3%
LMArena Instruction Following13821159
LiveBench Instruction Following80.5%—

Long Context DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 45.4 (#36), Llama 3.1-8B: 35.8 (#238)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Llama 3.1-8B
LMArena Longer Query13911182
Fiction.LiveBench75%—

Writing & Preference DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 61.4 (#88), Llama 3.1-8B: 29.7 (#290)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Llama 3.1-8B
LMArena Text14281187
LMArena Creative Writing14051154
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1500713
WildBench82.8%68.7%
LMArena Multi-Turn14051172
Short-Story Creative Writing83%—
LiveBench Language48.5%—

Frequently asked questions

Is DeepSeek-R1 better than Llama 3.1-8B?

DeepSeek-R1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 23.0 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.1-8B costs 16× less per token, which makes it the better buy when DeepSeek-R1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-R1 or Llama 3.1-8B?

Llama 3.1-8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; DeepSeek-R1 lists at $0.50 and $2.15.

Is DeepSeek-R1 or Llama 3.1-8B better for coding?

DeepSeek-R1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.3 versus 20.2 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

DeepSeek-R1 does, with 164K tokens against 128K.

How many benchmarks do DeepSeek-R1 and Llama 3.1-8B share?

31 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek-R1 has 52 scored results on Noometry and Llama 3.1-8B has 43.

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