GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) by OpenAI or Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) scores 10.8 points higher (38.4 vs 27.6) but costs 4.5× as much to run the benchmark ($5294 vs $1165; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 27.6, and Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) when 27.6 is enough.
| Metric | GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.4 | 27.6 | −28.1% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 28.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,294.36 | $1,165.00 | −78.0% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 78.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 55.87s | 56.53s | +1.2% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 1.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $30.0 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) vs GPT-5.5 (Xhigh): 28.1% less intelligence, 78.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 1.2% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GPT-5.5 (Xhigh) 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 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
GPT-5.5 (Xhigh)Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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