Verdict
Built from the measurements below
- Accuracy is too close to call: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 scored 73.8% and DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp 71.2% on the same 80 questions, a gap within what chance alone could produce.
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 is 1.2× cheaper per question as billed ($0.00091 vs $0.0011), reasoning tokens included.
- DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp generates text 3.0× faster: 170 tokens per second against 57.
- DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp starts answering sooner: 0.7 s to the first token, against 0.9 s for DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017.
Which should you choose?
Choose DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 for the lower cost per correct answer ($0.0012 against $0.0015) and more hosts to choose from on OpenRouter (30 against 3). Choose DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp for faster streaming and a quicker first token. The widest subject gap is in law: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 answered 4 of 6 correctly, DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp 2 of 6. With so few questions per subject, treat this as a lead to test on your own prompts, not a result.
Accuracy gap +2.5 points (z = 0.35). We call a winner only when z is at least 1.96, the usual 95% threshold. Speed, latency and price need a 10% margin.