DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 vs Pareto 26.9
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 took 7 min 16 s and $0.068 at list price, Pareto 26.9 took 10 min 32 s and $0.34 at list price. Pareto 26.9 took 1.4× as long and cost 5.0× as much.
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
DeepSeek · $0.60/M out · 1,693 HN pts
Pareto 26.9
Unbiased · $7.50/M out
Pelican
Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle
Watch
Draw a mechanical wristwatch that shows the current local time, with a sweeping seconds hand and a date window. Make it look expensive.
Landing
Build the landing page for Lumen Cycles, a Copenhagen workshop that builds custom cargo bikes to order. Make it look like a real brand you would trust with 4,000 euros.
Breakout
Make a Breakout game I can play right now with the keyboard or the mouse. Give it several levels, a score and some juice.
Logo
Design a logo for Night Heron, an independent bookshop that only opens after dark.
About
Write the opening of the About us page for Patchbay, a three-person studio in Rotterdam that repairs vintage synthesizers. About 150 words.
Patchbay is a three-person studio in Rotterdam devoted to keeping vintage synthesizers making the sounds they were built to make. We repair, service and restore analog instruments from the late 1960s onward, from familiar Moogs and ARPs to oddities with no service manual. Every synth that comes through the door is treated as a working instrument rather than a museum piece. We trace faults, rebuild power supplies, refresh capacitors, clean keybeds and calibrate oscillators, always with an eye on reliability and the character that made the machine worth saving. We document what we do, explain the options clearly and never replace more than necessary. Whether you need one dead voice brought back or a full restoration, we work carefully, at the bench and in conversation with you. Old synths belong on records and stages, and our job is to keep them there.
Patchbay is a small workshop in the heart of Rotterdam, where three people spend their days elbow-deep in the guts of vintage synthesizers. We fix the machines that made the sounds you grew up with—the ones that shaped entire genres and then got left in basements when the tech moved on. But we're not a museum. Our benches are covered in solder, schematics, and the occasional broken key that's been there for two weeks longer than we'd like to admit.
We started this studio because we got tired of seeing classic gear being stripped for parts, or worse, turned into Instagram decor. These instruments deserve better. They were built to make noise, and we want to keep them doing exactly that.
Between the three of us, we've fixed everything from a 1960s Buchla to a beat-up Juno that fell down a flight of stairs. If you've got a synth that's gone quiet, bring it in. We'll bring it back.
Specs and numbers
| DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Pareto 26.9 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | DeepSeek | Unbiased |
| Made in | China | — |
| Released | 17 Oct 2026 | 13 Oct 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $0.15 | $2.50 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $0.60 | $7.50 |
| Context | 1,048,576 tokens | 262,144 tokens |
| Weights | open | closed |
| Hacker News points | 1,693 | — |
| Time for the six prompts | 7 min 16 s | 10 min 32 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $0.068 | $0.34 |
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 was cheaper: $0.27 less at list price, and less on each of the 6 prompts. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 was faster: 3 min 16 s less in total, and faster on 2 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, both Breakout games play. Pareto 26.9's landing page was cut off at the output limit (12,000 tokens).
Rebuild this screen experiment: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017's rebuild matched the screenshot at 57%; Pareto 26.9 was not in it. Tea Garden experiment: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017's game passed 5 of 5 checks; Pareto 26.9 was not in it.