# Llama 3.2 90B vs Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

> Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.9 to 27.5 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/llama-3-2-90b-vs-qwen2-5-72b-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 6

## Summary

- They share 6 benchmarks with published results for both. Llama 3.2 90B scores higher in 1 category and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct in 3 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen2.5 72B Instruct leads 19.3 to 11.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is MATH Level 5: 39.4% for Llama 3.2 90B and 63.2% for Qwen2.5 72B Instruct.

## Snapshot

| | Llama 3.2 90B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 27.5 | 31.9 |
| Rank | 331 | 267 |
| Context | — | 131K |
| Input $/M | — | $1.40 |
| Output $/M | — | $5.60 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Llama 3.2 90B: —
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 33.2 (#260)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 90B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| WeirdML | — | 16% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.8% |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1292 |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 55.9% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Llama 3.2 90B: 30.0 (#80)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 22.1 (#133)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 90B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| BALROG | 27.3% | 16.2% |
| TheAgentCompany | — | 5.7% |
| METR Time Horizons | — | 35.8% |

## Reasoning

- Llama 3.2 90B: 21.7 (#217)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 22.3 (#199)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 90B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 125.5 | 129 |
| EnigmaEval | 0.4% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1271 |
| DTBench | — | 62.9% |
| LMCA | — | 13.4% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 79.8% |
| ForecastBench | — | 57.5 |
| HellaSwag | — | 84.8% |
| PIQA | — | 82.6% |
| WinoGrande | — | 82.3% |

## Math

- Llama 3.2 90B: 11.1 (#308)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 19.3 (#287)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 90B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 2.6% | 8.1% |
| MATH Level 5 | 39.4% | 63.2% |
| Omni-MATH | — | 33% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1283 |

## Knowledge

- Llama 3.2 90B: 21.7 (#274)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 27.0 (#253)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 90B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 41% | 49.1% |
| MMLU | 80.3% | 85.3% |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 63.1% |
| Confabulations | — | 19.1% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 42.6% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1245 |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 94.5% |
| TriviaQA | — | 71.9% |

## Multimodal

- Llama 3.2 90B: 25.4 (#124)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 90B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1000 | — |
| GeoBench | 52% | — |

## Multilingual

- Llama 3.2 90B: —
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 41.0 (#213)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 90B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1252 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1272 |
| LMArena French | — | 1280 |
| LMArena German | — | 1234 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1180 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1188 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1264 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1256 |

## Instruction Following

- Llama 3.2 90B: —
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 65.5 (#221)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 90B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | — | 80.6% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1254 |

## Long Context

- Llama 3.2 90B: —
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 38.9 (#188)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 90B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1282 |

## Writing & Preference

- Llama 3.2 90B: —
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 46.7 (#215)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 90B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1269 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1221 |
| WildBench | — | 80.2% |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1272 |

## FAQ

### Is Llama 3.2 90B better than Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.9 to 27.5 on the Noometry Index.

### How many benchmarks do Llama 3.2 90B and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct share?

6 benchmarks have published results for both models. Llama 3.2 90B has 9 scored results on Noometry and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct has 43.