Model comparison
GPT-5.6 Sol vs Qwen3 Max
GPT-5.6 Sol is the stronger model overall, scoring 64.4 to 43.5 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 Max costs 3.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5.6 Sol's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 30 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 30 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5.6 Sol scores higher in 8 categories and Qwen3 Max in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where GPT-5.6 Sol leads 74.7 to 22.0.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3): 89.1% for GPT-5.6 Sol and 18.9% for Qwen3 Max.
- Qwen3 Max is cheaper at $1.20 / $6 per million input/output tokens, against $4 / $20 for GPT-5.6 Sol.
- GPT-5.6 Sol accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 262K.
Side by side
| GPT-5.6 Sol | Qwen3 Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 64.4 | 43.5 |
| Released | 2026-07-09 | 2025-09-23 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1.05M | 262K |
| Max output | 128K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $4 | $1.20 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $20 | $6 |
| Results tracked | 64 | 33 |
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Category by category
Coding GPT-5.6 Sol leads
GPT-5.6 Sol: 61.1 (#7), Qwen3 Max: 42.4 (#93)
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1493 | 1456 |
| ALE-Bench | 2,177 | 370.45 |
| DeepSWE | 72.7% | — |
| FrontierCode | 47.5% | — |
| CursorBench | 41.7% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1619 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 32.2% | — |
| SciCode | 57.1% | — |
| WeirdML | 89.4% | — |
| MirrorCode | 20% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
GPT-5.6 Sol: 50.2 (#7), Qwen3 Max: —
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | 9,619 | 71.56 |
| APEX-Agents | 51.4% | — |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 27.3% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 46.9% | — |
| PostTrainBench | 36.2% | — |
| BALROG | 60% | — |
| GBAEval | 52.6% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 30.7% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1257 | — |
Reasoning GPT-5.6 Sol leads
GPT-5.6 Sol: 74.7 (#6), Qwen3 Max: 22.0 (#186)
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 67% | 72.5% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 93.8% | 30.1% |
| Chess Puzzles | 64% | 4% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1481 | 1448 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 58% | 5% |
| DTBench | 96% | 82.1% |
| LMCA | 59.2% | 28.3% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 161.99 | 142.41 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 92.5% | — |
| SimpleBench | 71.7% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 97.5% | — |
| CritPt | 32.3% | — |
| EnigmaEval | 37.1% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 44.8% | — |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 93.1% | — |
| Bench to the Future 3 | 0.14 | — |
Math GPT-5.6 Sol leads
GPT-5.6 Sol: 85.5 (#7), Qwen3 Max: 37.6 (#94)
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 89.1% | 18.9% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | 73.3% |
| LMArena Math | 1472 | 1447 |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 82.9% | — |
| ProofBench | 83% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 97.1% |
| FrontierMath Erdős | 0% | — |
Knowledge GPT-5.6 Sol leads
GPT-5.6 Sol: 64.3 (#16), Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#72)
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 93.5% | 72.6% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 69.7% | 48.7% |
| LMArena Expert | 1517 | 1457 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 12.4% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
GPT-5.6 Sol: 48.9 (#8), Qwen3 Max: —
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1281 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 33.6% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 56.7% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1483 | — |
Multilingual GPT-5.6 Sol leads
GPT-5.6 Sol: 55.4 (#32), Qwen3 Max: 53.9 (#58)
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1450 | 1429 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1523 | 1479 |
| LMArena French | 1475 | 1450 |
| LMArena German | 1476 | 1463 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1475 | 1399 |
| LMArena Korean | 1434 | 1397 |
| LMArena Russian | 1466 | 1428 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1449 | 1463 |
Instruction Following GPT-5.6 Sol leads
GPT-5.6 Sol: 77.8 (#16), Qwen3 Max: 75.0 (#81)
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1480 | 1420 |
Long Context GPT-5.6 Sol leads
GPT-5.6 Sol: 45.3 (#42), Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#129)
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1479 | 1439 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
| CL-bench | — | 14.5% |
Writing & Preference GPT-5.6 Sol leads
GPT-5.6 Sol: 73.5 (#12), Qwen3 Max: 62.6 (#72)
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1456 | 1439 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1450 | 1401 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1456 | 1446 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1972 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1250 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is GPT-5.6 Sol better than Qwen3 Max?
GPT-5.6 Sol is the stronger model overall, scoring 64.4 to 43.5 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 Max costs 3.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5.6 Sol's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, GPT-5.6 Sol or Qwen3 Max?
Qwen3 Max is cheaper. It lists at $1.20 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens; GPT-5.6 Sol lists at $4 and $20.
Is GPT-5.6 Sol or Qwen3 Max better for coding?
GPT-5.6 Sol scores higher on coding benchmarks: 61.1 versus 42.4 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
GPT-5.6 Sol does, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do GPT-5.6 Sol and Qwen3 Max share?
30 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5.6 Sol has 64 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.