Model comparison
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 14 shared benchmarks.
Microsoft
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Max Preview in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads 63.8 to 31.1.
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Microsoft | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 29.3 | 51.5 |
| Released | 2024-04-23 | 2026-04-20 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | — | 262K |
| Max output | — | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $1.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $7.80 |
| Results tracked | 32 | 29 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.9 (#318), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 48.7 (#54)
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1101 | 1471 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 76.7% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1482 |
| LiveBench Coding | 20.3% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —, Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 4,254 |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.8 (#323), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 41.7 (#53)
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1100 | 1457 |
| SimpleBench | — | 63% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 74.1% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 20% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 15.9% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 19% |
| DTBench | — | 87.2% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 30.3% | — |
| LMCA | — | 42.5% |
| Adversarial NLI | 58.1% | — |
| BIG-Bench Hard | 79.1% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 149.24 |
| HellaSwag | 77% | — |
| LiveBench | 24% | — |
| WinoGrande | 81.5% | — |
Math Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.6 (#248), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.1 (#46)
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1151 | 1465 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 91.1% |
| LiveBench Math | 17.6% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 23.1% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 29.1 (#240), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 57.6 (#39)
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1067 | 1478 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 87.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 52% |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | 90.7% | — |
| MMLU | 75.7% | — |
| OpenBookQA | 88% | — |
| TriviaQA | 58.1% | — |
Multilingual Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#272), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.2 (#48)
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1058 | 1437 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1061 | 1487 |
| LMArena French | 1135 | 1449 |
| LMArena Russian | 1111 | 1445 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1111 | 1454 |
| LMArena German | 1080 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 966 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 894 | — |
Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 51.9 (#292), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 75.7 (#55)
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1087 | 1438 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 47.2% | — |
Long Context Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#267), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 44.6 (#61)
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1088 | 1457 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.1 (#284), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 63.8 (#60)
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1110 | 1447 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1083 | 1435 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1068 | 1456 |
| LiveBench Language | 12.9% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better than Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.
Is Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct or Qwen3.6 Max Preview better for coding?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.7 versus 27.9 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct and Qwen3.6 Max Preview share?
14 benchmarks have published results for both models. Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Max Preview has 29.