# GPT-5 Mini vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview

> Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 41.8 on the Noometry Index. GPT-5 Mini costs 4.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gpt-5-mini-vs-qwen3-6-max-preview
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 26

## Summary

- They share 26 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5 Mini scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3.6 Max Preview in 7 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads 41.7 to 23.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is SimpleQA Verified: 21.6% for GPT-5 Mini and 52% for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
- GPT-5 Mini is cheaper at $0.25 / $2 per million input/output tokens, against $1.30 / $7.80 for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
- GPT-5 Mini accepts more context: 400K tokens versus 262K.

## Snapshot

| | GPT-5 Mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 41.8 | 51.5 |
| Rank | 128 | 43 |
| Context | 400K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.25 | $1.30 |
| Output $/M | $2 | $7.80 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |

## Coding

- GPT-5 Mini: 40.1 (#146)
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 48.7 (#54)

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 64.7% | 76.7% |
| LMArena Coding | 1406 | 1471 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 59.8% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1482 |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 39.7% | — |
| SciCode | 39.2% | — |
| WeirdML | 52.7% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 799.77 | — |
| AlgoTune | 1.38 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- GPT-5 Mini: 31.1 (#70)
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | -31.18 | 4,254 |
| Terminal-Bench | 34.8% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 55.5% | — |

## Reasoning

- GPT-5 Mini: 23.9 (#168)
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 41.7 (#53)

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 30% | 20% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1380 | 1457 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 10% | 19% |
| DTBench | 80.5% | 87.2% |
| LMCA | 34.2% | 42.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 145.52 | 149.24 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 4.4% | — |
| SimpleBench | — | 63% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 70.3% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 74.1% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 54.3% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| EnigmaEval | 8.2% | — |
| ForecastBench | 61 | — |

## Math

- GPT-5 Mini: 46.7 (#69)
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.1 (#46)

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 86.7% | 91.1% |
| LMArena Math | 1378 | 1465 |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 27.2% | 23.1% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 6.3% | 4.2% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 46.7% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 12.2% | — |
| ProofBench | 9% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 72.2% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 97.8% | — |

## Knowledge

- GPT-5 Mini: 45.6 (#86)
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 57.6 (#39)

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 75% | 87.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 21.6% | 52% |
| LMArena Expert | 1379 | 1478 |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 19.4% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 83.5% | — |
| Confabulations | 13.3% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 12.9% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 75.6% | — |

## Multimodal

- GPT-5 Mini: 35.6 (#85)
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1202 | — |
| VPCT | 40.2% | — |

## Multilingual

- GPT-5 Mini: 48.9 (#137)
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.2 (#48)

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1363 | 1437 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1385 | 1487 |
| LMArena French | 1386 | 1449 |
| LMArena Russian | 1362 | 1445 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1355 | 1454 |
| LMArena German | 1366 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1341 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1308 | — |

## Instruction Following

- GPT-5 Mini: 76.2 (#46)
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 75.7 (#55)

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1357 | 1438 |
| IFEval | 92.7% | — |

## Long Context

- GPT-5 Mini: 41.9 (#132)
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 44.6 (#61)

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1355 | 1457 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 69.4% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- GPT-5 Mini: 55.2 (#148)
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 63.8 (#60)

| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1373 | 1447 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1325 | 1435 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1363 | 1456 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 83.1% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1313 | — |
| WildBench | 85.5% | — |

## FAQ

### Is GPT-5 Mini better than Qwen3.6 Max Preview?

Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 41.8 on the Noometry Index. GPT-5 Mini costs 4.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, GPT-5 Mini or Qwen3.6 Max Preview?

GPT-5 Mini is cheaper. It lists at $0.25 per million input tokens and $2 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Max Preview lists at $1.30 and $7.80.

### Is GPT-5 Mini or Qwen3.6 Max Preview better for coding?

Qwen3.6 Max Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.7 versus 40.1 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-5 Mini does, with 400K tokens against 262K.

### How many benchmarks do GPT-5 Mini and Qwen3.6 Max Preview share?

26 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5 Mini has 60 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Max Preview has 29.