• Updated 31 Oct, 14:35 UTC
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DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 vs Mercury 3

6 prompts both ran·Specs and numbers·Change models

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 took 7 min 16 s and $0.068 at list price, Mercury 3 took 7 min 31 s and $0.065 at list price. Both took about as long, and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 cost 1.1× as much.

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017

DeepSeek · $0.60/M out · 1,693 HN pts

Mercury 3

Inception · $0.35/M out · 258 HN pts

Pelican

Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017's SVG for the "Pelican riding a bicycle" prompt

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017

48 s$0.00711k tokensAPI
Mercury 3's SVG for the "Pelican riding a bicycle" prompt

Mercury 3

1 min 30 s$0.01028k tokensAPI

Watch

Draw a mechanical wristwatch that shows the current local time, with a sweeping seconds hand and a date window. Make it look expensive.

Still of DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017's page for the "Wristwatch that shows the current time" prompt

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017

2 min 20 s$0.01017k tokensAPI
Still of Mercury 3's page for the "Wristwatch that shows the current time" prompt

Mercury 3

70 s$0.01233k tokensAPI

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.

Still of DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017's page for the "Landing page for a cargo bike workshop" prompt

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017

1 min 36 s$0.02746k tokensAPI
Still of Mercury 3's page for the "Landing page for a cargo bike workshop" prompt

Mercury 3

42 s$0.00720k tokensAPI

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.

Still of DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017's page for the "Playable Breakout" prompt

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017

69 s$0.01525k tokensAPI
Still of Mercury 3's page for the "Playable Breakout" prompt

Mercury 3

29 s$0.00719k tokensAPI

Design a logo for Night Heron, an independent bookshop that only opens after dark.

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017's SVG for the "Bookshop logo" prompt

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017

76 s$0.00813k tokensAPI
Mercury 3's SVG for the "Bookshop logo" prompt

Mercury 3

3 min 38 s$0.02983k tokensAPI

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.

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017

7 s<$0.001975 tokensAPI

Patchbay is a three-person repair studio in Rotterdam, tucked between a bike shop and a coffee roastery, where vintage synthesizers come to live another life. We are not a factory and we are not a museum; we are technicians who love the smell of warm solder and the patience that old circuits demand. Between us we have restored everything from early Moog modulars to battered Junos, and we treat each instrument as if it were the first one we ever opened. There is no assembly line here. Every capacitor is tested, every busbar tracked by hand, and every voice board is listened to twice—once on the bench, once through the speakers of the synth that will use it. Patchbay exists because these machines deserve more than a quick fix. They deserve someone who knows their quirks, their failures, and the strange, beautiful sounds that made us fall in love with them in the first place.

Mercury 3

3 s<$0.0011.2k tokensAPI

Specs and numbers

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017Mercury 3
MakerDeepSeekInception
Made inChinaUS
Released17 Oct 202616 Oct 2026
Price in, per M tokens$0.15$0.10
Price out, per M tokens$0.60$0.35
Context1,048,576 tokens1,000,000 tokens
Weightsopenclosed
Hacker News points1,693258
Time for the six prompts7 min 16 s7 min 31 s
List price of the six prompts$0.068$0.065

Mercury 3 was cheaper: $0.004 less at list price, and less on 3 of the 6 prompts. Both took about as long in total; Mercury 3 was faster on 4 of the 6 prompts.

In the recording, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017's Breakout game plays; Mercury 3's stopped painting.

Rebuild this screen experiment: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017's rebuild matched the screenshot at 57%; Mercury 3 was not in it. Tea Garden experiment: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017's game passed 5 of 5 checks; Mercury 3 was not in it.

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