GPT-6.1 Sol (Low) vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: GPT-6.1 Sol (Low) by OpenAI or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 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
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores 3.3 points higher (45.4 vs 42.1) but costs 20× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $250; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 42.1, and GPT-6.1 Sol (Low) when 42.1 is enough.
| Metric | GPT-6.1 Sol (Low) | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 42.1 | 45.4 | +7.8% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 7.8% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $250.48 | $4,934.79 | +1870.1% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 20× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.25s | 64.07s | +423.0% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 423.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs GPT-6.1 Sol (Low): 7.8% more intelligence, 1870.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 423.0% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GPT-6.1 Sol (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
- Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
GPT-6.1 Sol (Low)Qwen3.8 Max (0902)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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