Model comparison

DeepSeek-R1 vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct

DeepSeek-R1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 38.1 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 21 shared benchmarks.

DeepSeek-R1 DeepSeek

42.3

Rank #115 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek-R1 scores higher in 8 categories and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct in 1 category; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in coding, where DeepSeek-R1 leads 46.3 to 35.5.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 69.4% for DeepSeek-R1 and 49.5% for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
  • DeepSeek-R1 is cheaper at $0.50 / $2.15 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
  • Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 164K.
  • Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

DeepSeek-R1 and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct specifications
DeepSeek-R1Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
ProviderDeepSeekAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index42.338.1
Released2025-01-202025-04
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window164K262K
Max output64K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.50$1.50
Output $ / M tokens$2.15$7.50
Results tracked5225

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Category by category

Coding DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 46.3 (#68), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 35.5 (#223)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
WeirdML41.6%41.2%
LMArena Coding14271412
ALE-Bench804.12461.45
AlgoTune1.71.44
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)—55.4%
Aider Polyglot71.4%—
LMArena WebDev—1275
SciCode35.7%—
GSO—4.9%
LiveBench Coding66.7%—

Agentic & Tool Use DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 30.7 (#75), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.9 (#123)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
Terminal-Bench—27.2%
DeepResearch Bench35.1%—
BALROG34.9%—
METR Time Horizons53.8%—

Reasoning Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads

DeepSeek-R1: 18.6 (#278), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 25.5 (#149)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
Kagi LLM Benchmark69.4%49.5%
LMArena Hard Prompts14161372
ARC-AGI-21.3%—
SimpleBench40.8%—
ARC-AGI-121.2%—
CritPt1.1%—
LiveBench Reasoning83.2%—
LiveBench Data Analysis69.8%—
Epoch Capabilities Index141.29—
ForecastBench60—
LiveBench71.6%—

Math DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 43.8 (#79), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.6 (#150)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Math14001365
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202566.4%—
Omni-MATH42.4%—
LiveBench Math80.7%—
MATH Level 596.6%—

Knowledge DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 44.5 (#87), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.0 (#162)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Expert13941338
GPQA Diamond76.3%—
MMLU-Pro79.3%—
Confabulations12.7%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate11.3%—
GPQA (HELM)66.6%—

Multilingual DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 52.4 (#85), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.7 (#148)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Non-English14121346
LMArena Chinese14421357
LMArena French14171398
LMArena German14041325
LMArena Japanese13911310
LMArena Korean13601305
LMArena Russian14231366
LMArena Spanish14111360

Instruction Following Too close to call

DeepSeek-R1: 72.0 (#143), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.6 (#147)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following13821355
LiveBench Instruction Following80.5%—
IFEval78.4%—

Long Context DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 45.4 (#36), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#131)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Longer Query13911378
Fiction.LiveBench75%—

Writing & Preference DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 61.4 (#88), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.3 (#147)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Text14281357
LMArena Creative Writing14051333
LMArena Multi-Turn14051365
Short-Story Creative Writing83%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1500—
WildBench82.8%—
LiveBench Language48.5%—

Frequently asked questions

Is DeepSeek-R1 better than Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?

DeepSeek-R1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 38.1 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-R1 or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?

DeepSeek-R1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.50 per million input tokens and $2.15 per million output tokens; Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

Is DeepSeek-R1 or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct better for coding?

DeepSeek-R1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.3 versus 35.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct does, with 262K tokens against 164K.

How many benchmarks do DeepSeek-R1 and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct share?

21 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek-R1 has 52 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25.

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