Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: Qwen3.6 35B A3B (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 27.2 points higher (45.4 vs 18.2) but costs 5.5× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $896; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 18.2, and Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) when 18.2 is enough.
| Metric | Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 18.2 | 45.4 | +149.5% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 2.5× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $896.39 | $4,934.79 | +450.5% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 5.5× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 46.69s | 62.92s | +34.8% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 34.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.38 / $2.25 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Video | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning): 149.5% more intelligence, 450.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 34.8% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
- 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 35B A3B (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/qwen3-6-35b-a3b/qwen3-8-max · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/qwen3-6-35b-a3b/qwen3-8-max?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill