Model comparison

DeepSeek-R1 vs Qwen2-72B

DeepSeek-R1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 30.0 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 22 shared benchmarks.

DeepSeek-R1 DeepSeek

42.3

Rank #115 Confirmed

Qwen2-72B Alibaba (Qwen)

30.0

Rank #300 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 22 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek-R1 scores higher in 8 categories and Qwen2-72B in 1 category; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where DeepSeek-R1 leads 44.5 to 21.2.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is MATH Level 5: 96.6% for DeepSeek-R1 and 39.1% for Qwen2-72B.
  • Qwen2-72B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

DeepSeek-R1 and Qwen2-72B specifications
DeepSeek-R1Qwen2-72B
ProviderDeepSeekAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index42.330.0
Released2025-01-202024-06-07
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window164K—
Max output64K—
Input $ / M tokens$0.50—
Output $ / M tokens$2.15—
Results tracked5226

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 46.3 (#68), Qwen2-72B: 29.1 (#310)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen2-72B
WeirdML41.6%11.3%
LMArena Coding14271196
Aider Polyglot71.4%—
SciCode35.7%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—38.5%
LiveBench Coding66.7%—
BigCodeBench Complete—54%
ALE-Bench804.12—
AlgoTune1.7—

Agentic & Tool Use DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 30.7 (#75), Qwen2-72B: 17.0 (#146)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen2-72B
METR Time Horizons53.8%29.9%
TheAgentCompany—1.1%
DeepResearch Bench35.1%—
BALROG34.9%—

Reasoning Qwen2-72B leads

DeepSeek-R1: 18.6 (#278), Qwen2-72B: 23.2 (#181)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen2-72B
LMArena Hard Prompts14161191
Epoch Capabilities Index141.29125.28
ARC-AGI-21.3%—
SimpleBench40.8%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark69.4%—
ARC-AGI-121.2%—
CritPt1.1%—
LiveBench Reasoning83.2%—
LiveBench Data Analysis69.8%—
ForecastBench60—
LiveBench71.6%—

Math DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 43.8 (#79), Qwen2-72B: 30.2 (#236)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen2-72B
LMArena Math14001235
MATH Level 596.6%39.1%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202566.4%—
Omni-MATH42.4%—
LiveBench Math80.7%—

Knowledge DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 44.5 (#87), Qwen2-72B: 21.2 (#275)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen2-72B
GPQA Diamond76.3%40.8%
LMArena Expert13941171
MMLU-Pro79.3%—
Confabulations12.7%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate11.3%—
GPQA (HELM)66.6%—
MMLU—82.4%

Multilingual DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 52.4 (#85), Qwen2-72B: 35.9 (#244)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen2-72B
LMArena Non-English14121176
LMArena Chinese14421240
LMArena French14171170
LMArena German14041151
LMArena Japanese13911111
LMArena Korean13601083
LMArena Russian14231169
LMArena Spanish14111169

Instruction Following DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 72.0 (#143), Qwen2-72B: 61.7 (#241)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen2-72B
LMArena Instruction Following13821181
LiveBench Instruction Following80.5%—
IFEval78.4%—

Long Context DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 45.4 (#36), Qwen2-72B: 36.1 (#235)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen2-72B
LMArena Longer Query13911192
Fiction.LiveBench75%—

Writing & Preference DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 61.4 (#88), Qwen2-72B: 40.8 (#241)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen2-72B
LMArena Text14281203
LMArena Creative Writing14051181
LMArena Multi-Turn14051196
Short-Story Creative Writing83%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1500—
WildBench82.8%—
LiveBench Language48.5%—

Frequently asked questions

Is DeepSeek-R1 better than Qwen2-72B?

DeepSeek-R1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 30.0 on the Noometry Index.

Is DeepSeek-R1 or Qwen2-72B better for coding?

DeepSeek-R1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.3 versus 29.1 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do DeepSeek-R1 and Qwen2-72B share?

22 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek-R1 has 52 scored results on Noometry and Qwen2-72B has 26.

Related comparisons

Go deeper