Claude Opus 5 (Max) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Max) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Max) scores 30.6 points higher (50.8 vs 20.2) but costs 3.6× as much to run the benchmark ($7275 vs $2022; both flagship class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 20.2, and Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) when 20.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Max) | Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 50.8 | 20.2 | −60.2% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 60.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,274.74 | $2,022.49 | −72.2% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 72.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 82.58s | 13.95s | −83.1% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 83.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) vs Claude Opus 5 (Max): 60.2% less intelligence, 72.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 83.1% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Opus 5 (Max)Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5/qwen3-8-27b-non-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5/qwen3-8-27b-non-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill