gpt-oss-20b (High) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning)
Which is better for the money: gpt-oss-20b (High) 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
Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) scores 11.2 points higher (20.2 vs 9.0) but costs 70× as much to run the benchmark ($2022 vs $28.8; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) when you need intelligence above 9.0, and gpt-oss-20b (High) when 9.0 is enough.
| Metric | gpt-oss-20b (High) | Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.0 | 20.2 | +124.4% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 2.2× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $28.81 | $2,022.49 | +6920.1% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 70× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.68s | 14.49s | +5.9% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 5.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.05 / $0.22 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) vs gpt-oss-20b (High): 124.4% more intelligence, 6920.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 5.9% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- gpt-oss-20b (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- 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-oss-20b (High)Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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