DeepSeek V4 Pro vs Kimi K3 for research skills
DeepSeek V4 Pro wins, 98–90
Same 12 research skills tasks, marked blind by three rival labs. DeepSeek V4 Pro took 5 tasks, Kimi K3 took 0, 7 tied. Tested 16 Aug 2026.
Where they differed most
Someone wants to trace the history of their 1930s semi in Leicester — who built it, who has lived there, what stood on the land before. Lay out the kinds of sources and places in the UK that answer each part (deeds, census-type records, old maps, local archives, newspaper archives), what each one can and cannot tell them, and the sensible order to work in. No URLs — the shape of the search, not links.
Trace the history of a 1930s semi-detached house in Leicester by working from the present backwards. The key local institutions are the **Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland**, **Leicester Local Studies Library**, **Leicester City Council planning/building control**, and **HM Land Registry**. National sources include **The National Archives** and the major commercial family-history and newspaper collections. Below is a source-by-source guide to what each can and cannot tell you. --- ## 1. Who built it: ownership, deeds an…
# Tracing a 1930s semi in Leicester Good news first: a 1930s house sits in a sweet spot. It's recent enough that paper survives in quantity (deeds, building control plans, the 1939 Register), but old enough that the land underneath was almost certainly fields, so there's a "before" worth finding. One early fork to resolve: is it a **private spec-built semi** (Knighton, Evington, Rushey Mead, Western Park and similar) or an **ex-council house** (Braunstone, New Parks, Saffron Lane estates)? The deeds will tell you immediately — if the first con…
Task by task
| Task | DeepSeek V4 Pro | Kimi K3 |
|---|---|---|
| Make it answerable | 10 | 10 |
| Rank the sources | 9 | 9 |
| Synthesise the disagreement | 10 | 9 |
| Tear down the survey | 9 | 9 |
| Correlation for the neighbour | 10 | 10 |
| Plan the dig | 9.5 | 5 |
| What you cannot cite | 10 | 10 |
| Structure the evidence | 10 | 10 |
| Ask without leading | 10 | 9 |
| Two sources, head on | 10 | 8 |
| Primary or secondary | 10 | 9 |
| Refuse the invented bibliography | 10 | 10 |
Full receipts: DeepSeek V4 Pro, Kimi K3 · judges claude-sonnet-5, gemini-3.1-pro-preview, gpt-5.6-terra
Questions people ask
Which is better for research skills: DeepSeek V4 Pro or Kimi K3?
DeepSeek V4 Pro — it scored 98/100 against 90/100 on our 12-task research skills suite, winning 5 tasks to 0 with 7 tied. Every answer was marked blind by three judges from three rival AI labs.
How was this tested?
Both models answered the identical published research skills tasks. Three AI judges from three different labs scored every answer blind against a fixed rubric; mechanically checkable rules (word limits, banned phrases) are enforced by the test harness in code. The raw outputs and judge verdicts are downloadable.
More research skills head-to-heads: DeepSeek V4 Pro vs GPT-5.6 Sol · DeepSeek V4 Pro vs GPT-5.5 · DeepSeek V4 Pro vs GPT-5.6 Luna · DeepSeek V4 Pro vs GPT-5.3-Codex · DeepSeek V4 Pro vs GPT-5.6 Terra · DeepSeek V4 Pro vs Grok 4.5
Full ranking: Best AI for research skills · model pages: DeepSeek V4 Pro, Kimi K3