Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) by Alibaba or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores 24.0 points higher (45.4 vs 21.4) but costs 4.3× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $1145; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 21.4, and Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) when 21.4 is enough.
| Metric | Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 21.4 | 45.4 | +112.1% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 2.1× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,145.36 | $4,934.79 | +330.9% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 4.3× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 111.39s | 64.07s | −42.5% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 42.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.60 / $3.60 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Video | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning): 112.1% more intelligence, 330.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 42.5% 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 Max (0902) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning)Qwen3.8 Max (0902)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/qwen3-6-27b/qwen3-8-max · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/qwen3-6-27b/qwen3-8-max?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill