Noometry

Model comparison

Qwen Max vs Qwen3.6 35B-A3B

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.6 to 34.7 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 2 shared benchmarks.

Qwen Max Alibaba (Qwen)

34.7

Rank #230 Confirmed

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B Alibaba (Qwen)

37.6

Rank #201 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen Max scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads 51.3 to 30.3.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 16.1% for Qwen Max and 86.7% for Qwen3.6 35B-A3B.
  • Qwen3.6 35B-A3B is cheaper at $0.25 / $1.49 per million input/output tokens, against $1.60 / $6.40 for Qwen Max.
  • Qwen3.6 35B-A3B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 33K.
  • Qwen3.6 35B-A3B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Qwen MaxQwen3.6 35B-A3B
ProviderAlibaba (Qwen)Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index34.737.6
Released2024-04-032026-04-01
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window33K262K
Max output8K66K
Input $ / M tokens$1.60$0.25
Output $ / M tokens$6.40$1.49
Results tracked2314

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads

Qwen Max: 30.7 (#292), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 37.2 (#196)

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.6 35B-A3B
Aider Polyglot21.8%—
SciCode—35.8%
WeirdML—34.5%
LMArena Coding1288—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Qwen Max: —, Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 22.1 (#134)

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.6 35B-A3B
Terminal-Bench—23%

Reasoning Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads

Qwen Max: 25.1 (#151), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 28.0 (#109)

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.6 35B-A3B
NYT Connections (extended)—41.6%
CritPt—0.3%
Chess Puzzles—26%
LMArena Hard Prompts1269—
Mystery Game Puzzles—22%
DTBench—73.9%
LMCA—29.7%
Surface Evolver Bench—44.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index—143.93

Math Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads

Qwen Max: 22.3 (#276), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 38.9 (#121)

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.6 35B-A3B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202516.1%86.7%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—20.4%
LMArena Math1275—
MATH Level 567.2%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)1%—

Knowledge Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads

Qwen Max: 30.3 (#228), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 51.3 (#68)

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.6 35B-A3B
GPQA Diamond56.1%84.8%
LMArena Expert1248—

Multilingual Not comparable

Qwen Max: 41.8 (#202), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Non-English1263—
LMArena Chinese1254—
LMArena French1330—
LMArena German1254—
LMArena Japanese1205—
LMArena Korean1142—
LMArena Russian1274—
LMArena Spanish1290—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Qwen Max: 66.5 (#208), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Instruction Following1262—

Long Context Not comparable

Qwen Max: 39.4 (#180), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.6 35B-A3B
Fiction.LiveBench66.7%—
LMArena Longer Query1288—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Qwen Max: 47.8 (#205), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Text1282—
LMArena Creative Writing1248—
LMArena Multi-Turn1277—

Frequently asked questions

Is Qwen Max better than Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.6 to 34.7 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Qwen Max 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; Qwen Max lists at $1.60 and $6.40.

Is Qwen Max or Qwen3.6 35B-A3B better for coding?

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.2 versus 30.7 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B does, with 262K tokens against 33K.

How many benchmarks do Qwen Max and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen Max has 23 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B has 14.

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