GLM 5.3 Prime vs Gemini 3.8 Flash
GLM 5.3 Prime took 55 min 49 s and $3.43 at list price, Gemini 3.8 Flash took 8 min 33 s and $0.32 at list price. GLM 5.3 Prime took 6.5× as long and cost 11× as much.
GLM 5.3 Prime
Z.ai · $8.80/M out
Gemini 3.8 Flash
Google · $4.13/M out · 1,293 HN pts
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.
Some of the machines we work on were built before any of us were born. Patchbay is a three-person repair studio in Rotterdam, and what we do is simple to describe: we keep vintage synthesizers playing. A Minimoog that sat in an attic for thirty years. A Juno-60 with keys that no longer speak. A modular system that hums where it should roar. Whatever comes through our door gets opened up, traced through, and brought back.
That means rebuilding power supplies, cleaning a thousand key contacts, chasing a fault across three boards until it turns out to be a single cracked solder joint. It means calibrating oscillators that have drifted for decades, and listening — really listening — until a filter sounds the way it did the day it left the factory.
We do this because these instruments still sound like nothing else, and because somewhere a player is waiting to hear one come back to life.
Tucked away in Rotterdam, Patchbay is a three-person repair studio dedicated to the preservation and revival of vintage synthesizers. We believe that classic instruments are living machines rather than museum relics—tools built to inspire, create, and be played loud. Between the three of us, we combine decades of experience in electronics engineering, sound design, and meticulous craftsmanship. Whether tracking down elusive voice chips for an eighties polyphonic giant, rebuilding power supplies, or recalibrating the drift on a cantankerous monophonic circuit from the seventies, we treat every piece of gear with obsessive attention to detail. Our workbench is built on a deep respect for historical engineering and a refusal to cut corners. For musicians, producers, and collectors across the Netherlands and beyond, Patchbay is where forgotten circuits find their current again, keeping the tactile soul of analog synthesis alive and resonant.
Specs and numbers
| GLM 5.3 Prime | Gemini 3.8 Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Z.ai | |
| Made in | China | US |
| Released | 23 Sep 2026 | 2 Sep 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $2.80 | $0.825 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $8.80 | $4.13 |
| Context | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Weights | closed | closed |
| Hacker News points | — | 1,293 |
| Time for the six prompts | 55 min 49 s | 8 min 33 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $3.43 | $0.32 |
Gemini 3.8 Flash was cheaper: $3.10 less at list price, and less on each of the 6 prompts. Gemini 3.8 Flash was faster: 47 min 17 s less in total, and faster on each of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, both Breakout games play. GLM 5.3 Prime's landing page was cut off at the output limit (131,072 tokens).





