Comment by mattlondon
5 hours ago
Sooo... Is Carbon 4.1? Or is it different to Argon 4 somehow? Different model? Or point update?
Is Argon "pro" and Carbon "ultra"?
Is Argon obsolete now? Does Carbon replace it or live alongside of it?
Very confusing naming!
1. "Building on Gemini 4 Argon". 2. Same price. 3. Relatively short time between releases.
Makes me think it's further post-training of the same model.
IIUC, that was all the Flash releases from 3.5 to 3.8
For Gemini that is a foundation model version 3.1 3.5 4 etc. and there is checkpoint on evolution of those specific models. Gemini 4 had Argon - B<> - Carbon and who knows they might have Dysporsium or Europium.
Or you might get Gemini 5 Arizona.
I’m just even more confused
Yes.. very confusing names. Carbon is the next iteration of Argon.
Carbon is like Opus
Argon is like Sonnet
I'm surprised no one at Google realized that both OpenAI and Anthropic's naming schemes follow a fairly clear progression and that they should do something similar to reduce confusion. I would have assumed the opposite given that Argon has a higher periodic number
Lots of commenters here are confused by Luna, Terra, and Sol still haha.
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Both seem to have the same pricing: $2 in / $10 out initially, rising to $4 in / $20 out after the introductory period. That made me wonder whether Carbon might be Argon with additional RL training. What’s the Opus/Sonnet comparison based on?
No, it's not. The naming is just bad. It's the next iteration of Argon
I don't think that's right. Carbon and Argon have the same price.
I suspect they're using a new naming convention because they had previous contractual obligations tied to the "pro" and "flash" naming, and by switching to a new naming schema they avoid those commitments.
Helium will be small and squeaky I presume
Carbon is Fable / Astra level. Argon is their Opus / Sol.
then why are both priced like sonnet?
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So Argon was 4.0 Flash effectively? Interesting that there is such a small gap between their new Pro and Flash tiers