Model comparison

GPT-5.5 vs Qwen3.6 35B-A3B

GPT-5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 63.4 to 37.6 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.6 35B-A3B costs 20× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 14 shared benchmarks.

GPT-5.5 OpenAI

63.4

Rank #9 Confirmed

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B Alibaba (Qwen)

37.6

Rank #201 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5.5 scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B in 0 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where GPT-5.5 leads 72.8 to 28.0.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3): 85.3% for GPT-5.5 and 20.4% for Qwen3.6 35B-A3B.
  • Qwen3.6 35B-A3B is cheaper at $0.25 / $1.49 per million input/output tokens, against $5 / $30 for GPT-5.5.
  • GPT-5.5 accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 262K.
  • Qwen3.6 35B-A3B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-5.5 and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B specifications
GPT-5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
ProviderOpenAIAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index63.437.6
Released2026-04-232026-04-01
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M262K
Max output128K66K
Input $ / M tokens$5$0.25
Output $ / M tokens$30$1.49
Results tracked7114

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Category by category

Coding GPT-5.5 leads

GPT-5.5: 58.2 (#17), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 37.2 (#196)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
SciCode56.1%35.8%
WeirdML84.9%34.5%
SWE-bench Verified80.6%—
DeepSWE67%—
FrontierCode43%—
LMArena WebDev1513—
GSO40.2%—
LMArena Coding1494—
MirrorCode10%—
ALE-Bench1,943—

Agentic & Tool Use GPT-5.5 leads

GPT-5.5: 50.7 (#6), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 22.1 (#134)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
Terminal-Bench84.7%23%
APEX-Agents55.1%—
OSWorld 2.013%—
Remote Labor Index6.3%—
τ²-bench Banking44.6%—
DeepResearch Bench54%—
PostTrainBench27.2%—
ExploitBench47.4%—
GBAEval53.2%—
GDP.pdf26%—
LMArena Search1242—
Vending-Bench 27,524—

Reasoning GPT-5.5 leads

GPT-5.5: 72.8 (#11), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 28.0 (#109)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
NYT Connections (extended)96.2%41.6%
CritPt27.1%0.3%
Chess Puzzles54%26%
Mystery Game Puzzles56%22%
DTBench96%73.9%
LMCA54.3%29.7%
Surface Evolver Bench88.1%44.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index159.1143.93
ARC-AGI-285%—
SimpleBench69%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark88.8%—
ARC-AGI-195%—
EBR-Bench34.3%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1489—
Bench to the Future 30.14—
ForecastBench60.6—

Math GPT-5.5 leads

GPT-5.5: 81.7 (#11), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 38.9 (#121)

Knowledge GPT-5.5 leads

GPT-5.5: 64.4 (#17), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 51.3 (#68)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
GPQA Diamond94%84.8%
SimpleQA Verified63%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate9.3%—
LMArena Expert1508—

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-5.5: 46.9 (#12), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Vision1297—
Blueprint-Bench 236.2%—
Furniture Assembly44.2%—
LMArena Document1486—

Multilingual Not comparable

GPT-5.5: 56.4 (#20), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Non-English1467—
LMArena Chinese1533—
LMArena French1486—
LMArena German1480—
LMArena Japanese1498—
LMArena Korean1460—
LMArena Russian1473—
LMArena Spanish1468—

Instruction Following Not comparable

GPT-5.5: 77.5 (#18), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Instruction Following1479—

Long Context Not comparable

GPT-5.5: 48.3 (#12), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
CL-bench Life22.2%—
LMArena Longer Query1484—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

GPT-5.5: 72.7 (#13), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Text1472—
LMArena Creative Writing1455—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1844—
EQ-Bench 41315—
LMArena Multi-Turn1476—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-5.5 better than Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?

GPT-5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 63.4 to 37.6 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.6 35B-A3B costs 20× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, GPT-5.5 or Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.25 per million input tokens and $1.49 per million output tokens; GPT-5.5 lists at $5 and $30.

Is GPT-5.5 or Qwen3.6 35B-A3B better for coding?

GPT-5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 58.2 versus 37.2 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-5.5 does, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do GPT-5.5 and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B share?

14 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5.5 has 71 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B has 14.

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