Model comparison

Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct vs Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.0 to 29.7 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct Microsoft

29.7

Rank #305 Confirmed

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B Alibaba (Qwen)

46.0

Rank #67 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads 62.3 to 27.1.

Side by side

Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B specifications
Phi 3 Mini 128k InstructQwen3.5 397B-A17B
ProviderMicrosoftAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index29.746.0
Released2024-04-232026-02-01
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window—262K
Max output—66K
Input $ / M tokens—$0.60
Output $ / M tokens—$3.60
Results tracked1936

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: 28.8 (#312), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 42.0 (#114)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Mini 128k InstructQwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Coding10391465
LMArena WebDev—1400
BigCodeBench Instruct29.6%—
BigCodeBench Complete40.6%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: —, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 33.3 (#53)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Mini 128k InstructQwen3.5 397B-A17B
APEX-Agents—24.9%
τ²-bench Airline—81.5%
τ²-bench Banking—9.8%
τ²-bench Retail—84.4%
τ²-bench Telecom—97.8%

Reasoning Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: 19.6 (#256), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 34.5 (#70)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Mini 128k InstructQwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Hard Prompts10281448
Kagi LLM Benchmark—73.7%
NYT Connections (extended)—58.9%
Chess Puzzles—13%
Thematic Generalization—65.1%
Mystery Game Puzzles—18%
DTBench—87.5%
LMCA—37.9%
Epoch Capabilities Index—146.65

Math Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: 31.6 (#222), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 46.1 (#73)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Mini 128k InstructQwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Math10891454
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—31.2%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—88.9%

Knowledge Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: 26.8 (#254), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 53.3 (#58)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Mini 128k InstructQwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Expert9841462
GPQA Diamond—86.4%

Multimodal Not comparable

Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: —, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 40.7 (#44)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Mini 128k InstructQwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Vision—1263

Multilingual Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: 25.2 (#285), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 53.7 (#59)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Mini 128k InstructQwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Non-English10001430
LMArena Chinese10161500
LMArena French10391461
LMArena German10061447
LMArena Japanese8991426
LMArena Korean8561384
LMArena Russian10041429
LMArena Spanish10591441

Instruction Following Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: 51.8 (#294), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 75.0 (#77)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Mini 128k InstructQwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Instruction Following10231424

Long Context Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: 30.4 (#289), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 44.1 (#74)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Mini 128k InstructQwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Longer Query9961442

Writing & Preference Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: 27.1 (#301), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 62.3 (#79)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Mini 128k InstructQwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Text10501438
LMArena Creative Writing10241401
LMArena Multi-Turn9891446
EQ-Bench Creative Writing—1478

Frequently asked questions

Is Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct better than Qwen3.5 397B-A17B?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.0 to 29.7 on the Noometry Index.

Is Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct or Qwen3.5 397B-A17B better for coding?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.0 versus 28.8 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct has 19 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B has 36.

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