Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B
Which is better for the money: Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) by Alibaba or Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B 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 2.4T A95B scores 18.5 points higher (39.9 vs 21.4) but costs 2.3× as much to run the benchmark ($2632 vs $1145; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning).
| Metric | Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) | Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 21.4 | 39.9 | +86.4% Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B is 86.4% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,145.36 | $2,632.05 | +129.8% Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B is 2.3× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 110.87s | 64.93s | −41.4% Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B is 41.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.60 / $3.60 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Video | Text |
Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B vs Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning): 86.4% more intelligence, 129.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 41.4% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning)Qwen3.8 2.4T A95BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/qwen3-6-27b/qwen3-8-2-4t-a95b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/qwen3-6-27b/qwen3-8-2-4t-a95b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill