GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) by OpenAI or Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) scores 30.9 points higher (42.1 vs 11.2) but costs 7.6× as much to run the benchmark ($2501 vs $329; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) when you need intelligence above 11.2, and Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) when 11.2 is enough.
| Metric | GPT-5.6 Terra (Max) | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 42.1 | 11.2 | −73.4% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 73.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,500.72 | $328.86 | −86.8% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 86.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 113.99s | 43.82s | −61.6% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 61.6% faster |
| 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 (Max): 73.4% less intelligence, 86.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 61.6% 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.
- Qwen3.5 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 (Max)Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-6-terra/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-6-terra/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill