Model comparison
Qwen2-72B vs Qwen3.5-9B
Qwen3.5-9B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.3 to 29.5 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 2 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen2-72B scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3.5-9B in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5-9B leads 46.0 to 21.2.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 40.8% for Qwen2-72B and 79% for Qwen3.5-9B.
Side by side
| Qwen2-72B | Qwen3.5-9B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 29.5 | 33.3 |
| Released | 2024-06-07 | 2026-02-23 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | — | 262K |
| Max output | — | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $0.15 |
| Results tracked | 26 | 10 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.5-9B leads
Qwen2-72B: 28.7 (#303), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.3 (#213)
| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 27.5% |
| WeirdML | 11.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 38.5% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1196 | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 54% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Qwen2-72B leads
Qwen2-72B: 16.9 (#138), Qwen3.5-9B: 14.4 (#143)
| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 9.2% |
| TheAgentCompany | 1.1% | — |
| METR Time Horizons | 29.9% | — |
Reasoning Too close to call
Qwen2-72B: 22.2 (#184), Qwen3.5-9B: 22.5 (#178)
| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 125.27 | 139.45 |
| CritPt | — | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 12% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1191 | — |
| DTBench | — | 71.2% |
| LMCA | — | 24.5% |
Math Qwen3.5-9B leads
Qwen2-72B: 27.9 (#232), Qwen3.5-9B: 33.5 (#174)
| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 48.5% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 61.7% |
| LMArena Math | 1235 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 39.1% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.5-9B leads
Qwen2-72B: 21.2 (#270), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#77)
| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 40.8% | 79% |
| LMArena Expert | 1171 | — |
| MMLU | 82.4% | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Qwen2-72B: 36.0 (#239), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1176 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1240 | — |
| LMArena French | 1169 | — |
| LMArena German | 1151 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1111 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1083 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1169 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1168 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Qwen2-72B: 62.0 (#236), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1181 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Qwen2-72B: 36.1 (#230), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1193 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Qwen2-72B: 41.0 (#236), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1203 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1181 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1195 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen2-72B better than Qwen3.5-9B?
Qwen3.5-9B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.3 to 29.5 on the Noometry Index.
Is Qwen2-72B or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?
Qwen3.5-9B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 35.3 versus 28.7 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Qwen2-72B and Qwen3.5-9B share?
2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen2-72B has 26 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.