GPT-5.6 Terra (High) vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: GPT-5.6 Terra (High) by OpenAI or Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-5.6 Terra (High) scores 23.0 points higher (34.2 vs 11.2) but costs 2.3× as much to run the benchmark ($768 vs $329; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick GPT-5.6 Terra (High) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning).
| Metric | GPT-5.6 Terra (High) | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 34.2 | 11.2 | −67.3% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 67.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $767.78 | $328.86 | −57.2% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 57.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.58s | 43.79s | +565.5% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 565.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $12.0 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs GPT-5.6 Terra (High): 67.3% less intelligence, 57.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 565.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GPT-5.6 Terra (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
GPT-5.6 Terra (High)Qwen3.5 9B (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/gpt-5-6-terra-high/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-6-terra-high/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill