Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) by Meta or Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) scores 28.4 points higher (39.6 vs 11.2) but costs 4.2× as much to run the benchmark ($1385 vs $329; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 11.2, and Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) when 11.2 is enough.
| Metric | Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.6 | 11.2 | −71.7% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 71.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,385.40 | $328.86 | −76.3% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 76.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 20.60s | 43.21s | +109.8% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 109.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.25 / $4.25 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh): 71.7% less intelligence, 76.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 109.8% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh)Qwen3.5 9B (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/muse-spark-1-2/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/muse-spark-1-2/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill