Gemini 4 Argon vs Mercury 2
Gemini 4 Argon leads Mercury 2 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 52.6 to 10.8, and Mercury 2 costs 13.3x less per output token ($0.75 vs $10.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 33 benchmarks have a result for both.
Gemini 4 Argon or Mercury 2: which to pick
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a coding score, 81.0 on the Vibe Coding Index; Mercury 2 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Mercury 2 for output tokens 13.3x cheaper ($0.75 vs $10.00 per million).
- Shared results
- 33
- Gemini 4 Argon only
- 61
- Mercury 2 only
- 9
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Gemini 4 Argon
Gemini 4 Argon leads, 52.6 against 10.8.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Mercury 2 has a AA Agentic Index result, 1.6.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Gemini 4 Argon
Gemini 4 Argon leads, 1315 against 1036.
Same board, both measured
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a Vals Index result, 69.2%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Gemini 4 Argon
Gemini 4 Argon takes 1.05M tokens against 128K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Mercury 2
Gemini 4 Argon $0.0070, Mercury 2 $0.0006 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Gemini 4 Argon 81.0 from 5 benchmarks, Mercury 2 not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Coding, 47.3 points apart on average over 7 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- LMArena WebDev: React: Gemini 4 Argon 1692 against Mercury 2 1160, 73.4 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Gemini 4 Argon $10.00 against Mercury 2 $0.75 per million output tokens, 13.3x apart.
- Context window
- Gemini 4 Argon takes 1.05M tokens, Mercury 2 128K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Gemini 4 Argon | Bars | Mercury 2 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 7 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 4 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 3 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 6 | 0 | ||
| General | 12 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 33 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index70
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Mercury 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 89.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1678 | 1171 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 31.1 | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 57.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 91.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 68.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 2.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 57.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | 56.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | 21.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 77.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SciCode | 61.8% | 37.7% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 26.5% | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| FrontierCode | 47.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| FrontierSWE | 55.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 43.2% | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| MirrorCode | 58.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ALE-Bench | 2100.1 | 785.6 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1546 | 1390 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1556 | 1385 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1692 | 1160 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1643 | 1199 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| SciCode | 12.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Mercury 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 52.6 | 10.8 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 166.4 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Mercury 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 1.6 | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1157 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench research | 83.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench browser | 92.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 69.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | 44.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 65.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 44.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 54.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | 27.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 75.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | 76.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 44.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Vals Science Index | 55.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Time Horizon Index (Vals AI) | 52.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| CUA-bench (Vals AI) | 4.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Robo-bench (Vals AI) | 0.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 70.8% | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| APEX-Agents | 82.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $13,718 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 21 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index40
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Mercury 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench reasoning | 95.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | 45.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 77.0% | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 57.1% | 17.1% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 96.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ARC-AGI | 98.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 91.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Chess puzzles | 59.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 64.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| EBR-bench | 64.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1546 | 1362 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1550 | 1358 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1548 | 1374 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Mercury 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 86.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 78.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ProofBench | 99.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1536 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1557 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Mercury 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 88.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 58.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 76.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1548 | 1343 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1555 | 1363 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1548 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1525 | 1349 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index60
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Mercury 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1315 | 1036 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1333 | 996 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1377 | 984 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1332 | 1009 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1388 | 982 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1329 | 1021 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Design Arena: SVG | Not measured | 998 | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | Not measured | 988 | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LiveBench design | 73.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index120
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Mercury 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | 69.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | 85.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 69.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 53.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 87.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| IFBench | Not measured | 69.8% | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 79.7% | 43.7% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| DTBench | 97.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMCA | 63.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Furniture assembly | 72.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text | 1532 | 1354 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1534 | 1328 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1527 | 1286 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: English | 1538 | 1378 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1522 | 1330 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1611 | 1414 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1503 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1534 | 1304 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1556 | 1357 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1547 | 1329 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1529 | 1300 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1527 | 1314 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Neither model has a result on the other 24 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Mercury 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Mercury 2 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Mercury 2 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Mercury 2 costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Google Gemini 4 Argon | Inception Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Inception | |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | October 13, 2026 | March 4, 2026 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 128K |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $0.25 |
| Output $/Mtok | $10.00 | $0.75 |
| Coding index | 81.0 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 5 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Gemini 4 Argon better than Mercury 2 for coding?
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a coding score, 81.0 on the Vibe Coding Index; Mercury 2 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Mercury 2 for output tokens 13.3x cheaper ($0.75 vs $10.00 per million).
Which is cheaper, Gemini 4 Argon or Mercury 2?
Gemini 4 Argon costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens; Mercury 2 costs $0.25 and $0.75. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Gemini 4 Argon or Mercury 2?
Gemini 4 Argon, with 1.05M tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks is the Gemini 4 Argon vs Mercury 2 comparison based on?
33 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Gemini 4 Argon's coding index rests on 5 independent benchmarks and Mercury 2's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.