GPT-6 Luna (Medium) vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: GPT-6 Luna (Medium) by OpenAI or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores 15.5 points higher (45.4 vs 29.9) but costs 158× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $31.2; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 29.9, and GPT-6 Luna (Medium) when 29.9 is enough.
| Metric | GPT-6 Luna (Medium) | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 29.9 | 45.4 | +51.8% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 51.8% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $31.17 | $4,934.79 | +15731.9% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 158× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 8.25s | 63.23s | +666.4% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 666.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.50 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs GPT-6 Luna (Medium): 51.8% more intelligence, 15731.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 666.4% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GPT-6 Luna (Medium) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- 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 Luna (Medium)Qwen3.8 Max (0902)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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