GPT-6 Astra (Medium) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning)
Which is better for the money: GPT-6 Astra (Medium) by OpenAI or Qwen3.8 27B (Non-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-6 Astra (Medium) scores 29.4 points higher (49.6 vs 20.2) but costs 1.2× as much to run the benchmark ($2434 vs $2022; both flagship class). Pick GPT-6 Astra (Medium) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning).
| Metric | GPT-6 Astra (Medium) | Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.6 | 20.2 | −59.3% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 59.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,434.12 | $2,022.49 | −16.9% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 16.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 14.25s | 13.84s | −2.9% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 2.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) vs GPT-6 Astra (Medium): 59.3% less intelligence, 16.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 2.9% faster 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.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
GPT-6 Astra (Medium)Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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