GPT-6 Astra (Medium) vs Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: GPT-6 Astra (Medium) by OpenAI or Qwen3.6 35B A3B (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-6 Astra (Medium) scores 31.4 points higher (49.6 vs 18.2) but costs 2.7× as much to run the benchmark ($2434 vs $896; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick GPT-6 Astra (Medium) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning).
| Metric | GPT-6 Astra (Medium) | Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.6 | 18.2 | −63.3% Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reas… is 63.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,434.12 | $896.39 | −63.2% Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reas… is 63.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 14.16s | 46.69s | +229.7% Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reas… is 229.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.38 / $2.25 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) vs GPT-6 Astra (Medium): 63.3% less intelligence, 63.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 229.7% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GPT-6 Astra (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
GPT-6 Astra (Medium)Qwen3.6 35B A3B (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-6-astra-medium/qwen3-6-35b-a3b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-6-astra-medium/qwen3-6-35b-a3b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill