Qwen3.8 27B (Low) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Qwen3.8 27B (Low) by Alibaba or Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) 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 (Medium) scores 1.4 points higher (27.6 vs 26.2) but costs 1.1× as much to run the benchmark ($1278 vs $1165; both premium class). Pick Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.8 27B (Low).
| Metric | Qwen3.8 27B (Low) | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 26.2 | 27.6 | +5.3% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 5.3% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,164.93 | $1,277.59 | +9.7% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 9.7% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 55.03s | 55.72s | +1.3% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 1.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.50 / $3.00 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Video | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Low): 5.3% more intelligence, 9.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 1.3% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Qwen3.8 27B (Low)Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)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/qwen3-8-27b-low/qwen3-8-27b-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/qwen3-8-27b-low/qwen3-8-27b-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill