Noometry

Model comparison

GPT-4.1 mini vs Qwen3.6 27B

Qwen3.6 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.2 to 33.6 on the Noometry Index. GPT-4.1 mini costs 1.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 10 shared benchmarks.

GPT-4.1 mini OpenAI

33.6

Rank #240 Confirmed

Qwen3.6 27B Alibaba (Qwen)

42.2

Rank #117 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 10 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-4.1 mini scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 27B in 5 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.6 27B leads 48.5 to 24.1.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 44.7% for GPT-4.1 mini and 91.1% for Qwen3.6 27B.
  • GPT-4.1 mini is cheaper at $0.40 / $1.60 per million input/output tokens, against $0.60 / $3.60 for Qwen3.6 27B.
  • GPT-4.1 mini accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 262K.
  • Qwen3.6 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 27B
ProviderOpenAIAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index33.642.2
Released2025-04-142026-04-22
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M262K
Max output33K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.40$0.60
Output $ / M tokens$1.60$3.60
Results tracked4711

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.6 27B leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 30.6 (#293), Qwen3.6 27B: 39.1 (#163)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 27B
SciCode40.4%37.3%
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)23.9%—
Aider Polyglot32.4%—
WeirdML37.6%—
BigCodeBench Instruct48.9%—
LMArena Coding1367—
CadEval16%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 33.3 (#55), Qwen3.6 27B: —

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 27B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard50.5%—

Reasoning Qwen3.6 27B leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 10.8 (#340), Qwen3.6 27B: 25.0 (#153)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 27B
CritPt0%0.9%
Chess Puzzles7%22%
Mystery Game Puzzles7%7%
DTBench68.8%78.1%
LMCA21.1%34.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index135.01146.5
ARC-AGI-20%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark48.6%—
ARC-AGI-13.5%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1349—

Math Qwen3.6 27B leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 24.1 (#270), Qwen3.6 27B: 48.5 (#62)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 27B
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)6.7%35.1%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202544.7%91.1%
Omni-MATH49.1%—
LMArena Math1343—
MATH Level 587.3%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)4.5%—

Knowledge Qwen3.6 27B leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 34.7 (#194), Qwen3.6 27B: 52.4 (#63)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 27B
GPQA Diamond65.8%85.9%
SimpleQA Verified12.7%—
MMLU-Pro78.3%—
GPQA (HELM)61.4%—
LMArena Expert1338—

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 35.8 (#82), Qwen3.6 27B: —

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 27B
LMArena Vision1181—

Multilingual Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 45.7 (#166), Qwen3.6 27B: —

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 27B
LMArena Non-English1318—
LMArena Chinese1329—
LMArena French1358—
LMArena German1351—
LMArena Japanese1290—
LMArena Korean1298—
LMArena Russian1324—
LMArena Spanish1319—

Instruction Following Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 73.7 (#118), Qwen3.6 27B: —

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 27B
IFEval90.4%—
LMArena Instruction Following1333—

Long Context Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 31.8 (#275), Qwen3.6 27B: —

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 27B
Fiction.LiveBench44.4%—
LMArena Longer Query1344—

Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 27B leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 48.6 (#199), Qwen3.6 27B: 50.3 (#181)

BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 27B
LMArena Text1340—
LMArena Creative Writing1300—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1147—
WildBench83.8%—
EQ-Bench 4—1026
LMArena Multi-Turn1354—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-4.1 mini better than Qwen3.6 27B?

Qwen3.6 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.2 to 33.6 on the Noometry Index. GPT-4.1 mini costs 1.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, GPT-4.1 mini or Qwen3.6 27B?

GPT-4.1 mini is cheaper. It lists at $0.40 per million input tokens and $1.60 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 27B lists at $0.60 and $3.60.

Is GPT-4.1 mini or Qwen3.6 27B better for coding?

Qwen3.6 27B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.1 versus 30.6 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-4.1 mini does, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do GPT-4.1 mini and Qwen3.6 27B share?

10 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-4.1 mini has 47 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 27B has 11.

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