DeepSeek V3 0324 vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V3 0324 by DeepSeek or Qwen3.5 397B A17B (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
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) scores 8.7 points higher (18.4 vs 9.7) but costs 47× as much to run the benchmark ($941 vs $19.9; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 9.7, and DeepSeek V3 0324 when 9.7 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.7 | 18.4 | +89.7% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 89.7% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $19.87 | $940.97 | +4635.6% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 47× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.35s | 65.15s | +1397.7% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 1397.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.24 / $0.90 | $0.60 / $3.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) vs DeepSeek V3 0324: 89.7% more intelligence, 4635.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 1397.7% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V3 0324 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
DeepSeek V3 0324Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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