DeepSeek V4.1 Flash hands-on tests and comparisons

On the same prompt, Opus 5.5 took 75 minutes for $12, GPT-6 Astra 40 minutes for $20.76, Kimi K3.1 Pro 25 minutes for $3, while DeepSeek V4.1 Flash was slowest at 120 minutes but cost only $0.9.

The open-source Strata engine tiers GPU memory, RAM and SSD so DeepSeek V4.1 Flash quantized builds run on 12GB VRAM plus 46–64GB system RAM, with OpenAI/Anthropic-compatible APIs for Claude Code and Codex CLI.

The author maps local hardware tiers to models: one DGX Spark or a 3090 with 128GB DDR4 for Qwen 3.8 Flash Next, two for GLM 5.3 Flash, and four DGX Sparks for DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017, with uncensored high-intelligence setups starting around $3,000.

Citing a comparison page, the user says the two are close and DeepSeek currently beats Kimi, but V4.1 Flash keeps its thinking in check less well than K3.1 Pro, the most efficient open model.

Users suspect OpenCode's DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 is a quantized self-deployment: cheaper but slower, frequently timing out, and losing quality to the official API every round.

Running the same Maya-S quant, 2x3090 with 128GB RAM and NVMe is notably slower than 7x3090 with 256GB, but 48GB of VRAM is already enough to run the model.

A user says DeepSeek V4.1 Flash in DSH is now their main model, with difficult tasks sent to Codex running GPT-6.1 Sol high.

Running DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 with ISTA IQ2_XXS quantization on dual RTX 3090s in a 2014 DDR4 workstation reaches 25 tok/s at 1M context.

On an M5 Ultra, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 2bit took 487s to first token and generated 43 tok/s at 512k context, slower than GLM-5.3-Flash, so the author uses GLM day to day.

A user running DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 locally through Strata on a PC finds accuracy roughly on par with AI from two or three years ago, while the model eats nearly 500GB of disk.

A user reports DeepSeek Harness with V4.1 Flash produced an interactive map of China's Middle Corridor route in 43 minutes for $0.48, questioning whether Opus or GPT6.1-Sol could match that cost.

Qoder's China and global sites are offering DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 free until Nov 1; testing shows roughly 100M tokens per account per day, with 100 credits for daily login.