Model comparison

Qwen2-72B vs Qwen3.6 27B

Qwen3.6 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.2 to 30.0 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 2 shared benchmarks.

Qwen2-72B Alibaba (Qwen)

30.0

Rank #300 Confirmed

Qwen3.6 27B Alibaba (Qwen)

42.2

Rank #117 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen2-72B scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 27B in 5 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.6 27B leads 52.4 to 21.2.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 40.8% for Qwen2-72B and 85.9% for Qwen3.6 27B.

Side by side

Qwen2-72B and Qwen3.6 27B specifications
Qwen2-72BQwen3.6 27B
ProviderAlibaba (Qwen)Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index30.042.2
Released2024-06-072026-04-22
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window—262K
Max output—66K
Input $ / M tokens—$0.60
Output $ / M tokens—$3.60
Results tracked2611

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.6 27B leads

Qwen2-72B: 29.1 (#310), Qwen3.6 27B: 39.1 (#163)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2-72BQwen3.6 27B
SciCode—37.3%
WeirdML11.3%—
BigCodeBench Instruct38.5%—
LMArena Coding1196—
BigCodeBench Complete54%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Qwen2-72B: 17.0 (#146), Qwen3.6 27B: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2-72BQwen3.6 27B
TheAgentCompany1.1%—
METR Time Horizons29.9%—

Reasoning Qwen3.6 27B leads

Qwen2-72B: 23.2 (#181), Qwen3.6 27B: 25.0 (#153)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2-72BQwen3.6 27B
Epoch Capabilities Index125.28146.5
CritPt—0.9%
Chess Puzzles—22%
LMArena Hard Prompts1191—
Mystery Game Puzzles—7%
DTBench—78.1%
LMCA—34.5%

Math Qwen3.6 27B leads

Qwen2-72B: 30.2 (#236), Qwen3.6 27B: 48.5 (#62)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2-72BQwen3.6 27B
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—35.1%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—91.1%
LMArena Math1235—
MATH Level 539.1%—

Knowledge Qwen3.6 27B leads

Qwen2-72B: 21.2 (#275), Qwen3.6 27B: 52.4 (#63)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2-72BQwen3.6 27B
GPQA Diamond40.8%85.9%
LMArena Expert1171—
MMLU82.4%—

Multilingual Not comparable

Qwen2-72B: 35.9 (#244), Qwen3.6 27B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2-72BQwen3.6 27B
LMArena Non-English1176—
LMArena Chinese1240—
LMArena French1170—
LMArena German1151—
LMArena Japanese1111—
LMArena Korean1083—
LMArena Russian1169—
LMArena Spanish1169—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Qwen2-72B: 61.7 (#241), Qwen3.6 27B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2-72BQwen3.6 27B
LMArena Instruction Following1181—

Long Context Not comparable

Qwen2-72B: 36.1 (#235), Qwen3.6 27B: —

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2-72BQwen3.6 27B
LMArena Longer Query1192—

Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 27B leads

Qwen2-72B: 40.8 (#241), Qwen3.6 27B: 50.3 (#181)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2-72BQwen3.6 27B
LMArena Text1203—
LMArena Creative Writing1181—
EQ-Bench 4—1026
LMArena Multi-Turn1196—

Frequently asked questions

Is Qwen2-72B better than Qwen3.6 27B?

Qwen3.6 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.2 to 30.0 on the Noometry Index.

Is Qwen2-72B or Qwen3.6 27B better for coding?

Qwen3.6 27B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.1 versus 29.1 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Qwen2-72B and Qwen3.6 27B share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen2-72B has 26 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 27B has 11.

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