Model comparison
Qwen3.6 Max Preview vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.1 to 37.7 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 15 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 15 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen3.6 Max Preview scores higher in 8 categories and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads 57.6 to 36.4.
- Both cost about the same: $1.30 input and $7.80 output per million tokens.
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 51.1 | 37.7 |
| Released | 2026-04-20 | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 262K | 262K |
| Max output | 66K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $1.30 | $1.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $7.80 | $7.50 |
| Results tracked | 29 | 25 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 48.6 (#50), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 36.2 (#199)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1482 | 1275 |
| LMArena Coding | 1472 | 1413 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 76.7% | — |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 55.4% |
| GSO | — | 4.9% |
| WeirdML | — | 41.2% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 461.45 |
| AlgoTune | — | 1.44 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.7 (#116)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 27.2% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 4,254 | — |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 40.8 (#47), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 24.7 (#141)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1457 | 1372 |
| SimpleBench | 63% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 49.5% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 74.1% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 20% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 19% | — |
| DTBench | 87.2% | — |
| LMCA | 42.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 149.27 | — |
Math Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 52.2 (#40), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 34.9 (#151)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1465 | 1364 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 91.1% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 23.1% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 4.2% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 57.6 (#35), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 36.4 (#159)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1476 | 1337 |
| GPQA Diamond | 87.4% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 52% | — |
Multilingual Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.3 (#46), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.8 (#143)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1436 | 1345 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1487 | 1356 |
| LMArena French | 1449 | 1394 |
| LMArena Russian | 1444 | 1367 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1452 | 1360 |
| LMArena German | — | 1324 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1309 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1307 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 75.8 (#51), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.8 (#142)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1437 | 1356 |
Long Context Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 44.6 (#59), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#126)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1457 | 1379 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 64.0 (#58), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.5 (#142)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1447 | 1356 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1435 | 1333 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1456 | 1365 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen3.6 Max Preview better than Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.1 to 37.7 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.6 Max Preview or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is cheaper. It lists at $1.30 per million input tokens and $7.80 per million output tokens; Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct lists at $1.50 and $7.50.
Is Qwen3.6 Max Preview or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct better for coding?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.6 versus 36.2 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Both accept 262K tokens.
How many benchmarks do Qwen3.6 Max Preview and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct share?
15 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3.6 Max Preview has 29 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25.