Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.8 vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview

Claude Opus 4.8 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.7 to 51.5 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.6 Max Preview costs 3.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 4.8's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 28 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 4.8 Anthropic

60.7

Rank #13 Confirmed

Qwen3.6 Max Preview Alibaba (Qwen)

51.5

Rank #43 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 28 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher in 8 categories and Qwen3.6 Max Preview in 0 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Claude Opus 4.8 leads 78.4 to 54.1.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Mystery Game Puzzles: 36% for Claude Opus 4.8 and 19% for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
  • Qwen3.6 Max Preview is cheaper at $1.30 / $7.80 per million input/output tokens, against $5 / $25 for Claude Opus 4.8.
  • Claude Opus 4.8 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.

Side by side

Claude Opus 4.8Qwen3.6 Max Preview
ProviderAnthropicAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index60.751.5
Released2026-05-282026-04-20
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1M262K
Max output128K66K
Input $ / M tokens$5$1.30
Output $ / M tokens$25$7.80
Results tracked6529

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Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 59.9 (#12), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 48.7 (#54)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena WebDev15561482
LMArena Coding14901471
SWE-bench Verified—76.7%
DeepSWE59%—
FrontierCode46.5%—
SciCode53.5%—
GSO47.1%—
WeirdML82.9%—
ALE-Bench1,564—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Opus 4.8: 47.6 (#11), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.6 Max Preview
Vending-Bench 25,7874,254
APEX-Agents48.9%—
OSWorld 2.020.6%—
Remote Labor Index8.3%—
τ²-bench Banking39.7%—
DeepResearch Bench50.2%—
PostTrainBench33.8%—
GBAEval70.9%—
GDP.pdf24%—
LMArena Search1204—

Reasoning Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 64.7 (#16), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 41.7 (#53)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.6 Max Preview
SimpleBench64.8%63%
NYT Connections (extended)91.1%74.1%
Chess Puzzles34%20%
LMArena Hard Prompts14821457
Mystery Game Puzzles36%19%
DTBench94.9%87.2%
LMCA57.5%42.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index158.21149.24
ARC-AGI-272.1%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark88.8%—
ARC-AGI-192.5%—
CritPt20.9%—
EnigmaEval23.5%—
EBR-Bench28.6%—
Surface Evolver Bench87.5%—
Bench to the Future 30.14—
ForecastBench59.9—

Math Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 78.4 (#13), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.1 (#46)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.6 Max Preview
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202598.3%91.1%
LMArena Math14871465
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)47.2%23.1%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)31.3%4.2%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)80%—
FrontierMath Tier 456.1%—
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions91.8%—
ProofBench69%—

Knowledge Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 61.3 (#29), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 57.6 (#39)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.6 Max Preview
GPQA Diamond91%87.4%
SimpleQA Verified53%52%
LMArena Expert15021478

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Opus 4.8: 42.9 (#26), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena Vision1294—
Blueprint-Bench 214.5%—
Furniture Assembly42.5%—
LMArena Document1475—

Multilingual Too close to call

Claude Opus 4.8: 55.2 (#33), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.2 (#48)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena Non-English14501437
LMArena Chinese15071487
LMArena French14811449
LMArena Russian14741445
LMArena Spanish14661454
LMArena German1472—
LMArena Japanese1440—
LMArena Korean1432—

Instruction Following Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 77.4 (#24), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 75.7 (#55)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena Instruction Following14761438

Long Context Too close to call

Claude Opus 4.8: 45.4 (#35), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 44.6 (#61)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena Longer Query14831457

Writing & Preference Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 72.0 (#16), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 63.8 (#60)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena Text14611447
LMArena Creative Writing14541435
LMArena Multi-Turn14761456
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1840—
EQ-Bench 41281—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than Qwen3.6 Max Preview?

Claude Opus 4.8 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.7 to 51.5 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.6 Max Preview costs 3.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 4.8's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 or Qwen3.6 Max Preview?

Qwen3.6 Max Preview is cheaper. It lists at $1.30 per million input tokens and $7.80 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 4.8 lists at $5 and $25.

Is Claude Opus 4.8 or Qwen3.6 Max Preview better for coding?

Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 59.9 versus 48.7 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Opus 4.8 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 4.8 and Qwen3.6 Max Preview share?

28 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 4.8 has 65 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Max Preview has 29.

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