GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) vs Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) by OpenAI or Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (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 (Max) scores 29.4 points higher (42.1 vs 12.7) but costs 11× as much to run the benchmark ($2501 vs $234; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) when you need intelligence above 12.7, and Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) when 12.7 is enough.
| Metric | GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) | Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 42.1 | 12.7 | −69.8% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 69.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,500.72 | $233.56 | −90.7% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 90.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 115.44s | 21.63s | −81.3% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 81.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $12.0 | $0.23 / $2.30 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) vs GPT-5.6 Terra (Max): 69.8% less intelligence, 90.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 81.3% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
GPT-5.6 Terra (Max)Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-6-terra/qwen3-235b-a22b-instruct-2507-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-6-terra/qwen3-235b-a22b-instruct-2507-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill