Noometry

Model comparison

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct vs Qwen3 Max

Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 37.7 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 19 shared benchmarks.

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct Alibaba (Qwen)

37.7

Rank #186 Confirmed

Qwen3 Max Alibaba (Qwen)

43.5

Rank #82 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen3 Max in 6 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3 Max leads 48.1 to 36.4.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 49.5% for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct and 72.5% for Qwen3 Max.
  • Qwen3 Max is cheaper at $1.20 / $6 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
  • Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B InstructQwen3 Max
ProviderAlibaba (Qwen)Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index37.743.5
Released2025-042025-09-23
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window262K262K
Max output66K66K
Input $ / M tokens$1.50$1.20
Output $ / M tokens$7.50$6
Results tracked2533

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3 Max leads

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 36.2 (#199), Qwen3 Max: 42.4 (#93)

BenchmarkQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B InstructQwen3 Max
LMArena Coding14131456
ALE-Bench461.45370.45
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)55.4%—
LMArena WebDev1275—
GSO4.9%—
WeirdML41.2%—
AlgoTune1.44—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.7 (#116), Qwen3 Max: —

BenchmarkQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B InstructQwen3 Max
Terminal-Bench27.2%—
Vending-Bench 2—71.56

Reasoning Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 24.7 (#141), Qwen3 Max: 22.0 (#186)

BenchmarkQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B InstructQwen3 Max
Kagi LLM Benchmark49.5%72.5%
LMArena Hard Prompts13721448
NYT Connections (extended)—30.1%
Chess Puzzles—4%
Mystery Game Puzzles—5%
DTBench—82.1%
LMCA—28.3%
Epoch Capabilities Index—142.41

Math Qwen3 Max leads

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 34.9 (#151), Qwen3 Max: 37.6 (#94)

BenchmarkQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B InstructQwen3 Max
LMArena Math13641447
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—18.9%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—73.3%
MATH Level 5—97.1%

Knowledge Qwen3 Max leads

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 36.4 (#159), Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#72)

BenchmarkQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B InstructQwen3 Max
LMArena Expert13371457
GPQA Diamond—72.6%
SimpleQA Verified—48.7%

Multilingual Qwen3 Max leads

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.8 (#143), Qwen3 Max: 53.9 (#58)

BenchmarkQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B InstructQwen3 Max
LMArena Non-English13451429
LMArena Chinese13561479
LMArena French13941450
LMArena German13241463
LMArena Japanese13091399
LMArena Korean13071397
LMArena Russian13671428
LMArena Spanish13601463

Instruction Following Qwen3 Max leads

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.8 (#142), Qwen3 Max: 75.0 (#81)

BenchmarkQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B InstructQwen3 Max
LMArena Instruction Following13561420

Long Context Too close to call

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#126), Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#129)

BenchmarkQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B InstructQwen3 Max
LMArena Longer Query13791439
Fiction.LiveBench—66.7%
CL-bench—14.5%

Writing & Preference Qwen3 Max leads

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.5 (#142), Qwen3 Max: 62.6 (#72)

BenchmarkQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B InstructQwen3 Max
LMArena Text13561439
LMArena Creative Writing13331401
LMArena Multi-Turn13651446

Frequently asked questions

Is Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct better than Qwen3 Max?

Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 37.7 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct or Qwen3 Max?

Qwen3 Max is cheaper. It lists at $1.20 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens; Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

Is Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct or Qwen3 Max better for coding?

Qwen3 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.4 versus 36.2 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 262K tokens.

How many benchmarks do Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct and Qwen3 Max share?

19 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.

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