# Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct vs Qwen3.6 35B-A3B

> Qwen3.6 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.6 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/phi-3-small-8k-instruct-vs-qwen3-6-35b-a3b
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 0

## Summary

- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads 51.3 to 29.1.

## Snapshot

| | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Microsoft | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 29.3 | 37.6 |
| Rank | 314 | 201 |
| Context | — | 262K |
| Input $/M | — | $0.25 |
| Output $/M | — | $1.49 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.9 (#318)
- Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 37.2 (#196)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 35.8% |
| WeirdML | — | 34.5% |
| LiveBench Coding | 20.3% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1101 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —
- Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 22.1 (#134)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 23% |

## Reasoning

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.8 (#323)
- Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 28.0 (#109)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 41.6% |
| CritPt | — | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 26% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 15.9% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1100 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 22% |
| DTBench | — | 73.9% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 30.3% | — |
| LMCA | — | 29.7% |
| Surface Evolver Bench | — | 44.4% |
| Adversarial NLI | 58.1% | — |
| BIG-Bench Hard | 79.1% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 143.93 |
| HellaSwag | 77% | — |
| LiveBench | 24% | — |
| WinoGrande | 81.5% | — |

## Math

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.6 (#248)
- Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 38.9 (#121)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 20.4% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 86.7% |
| LiveBench Math | 17.6% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1151 | — |

## Knowledge

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 29.1 (#240)
- Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 51.3 (#68)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 84.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1067 | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | 90.7% | — |
| MMLU | 75.7% | — |
| OpenBookQA | 88% | — |
| TriviaQA | 58.1% | — |

## Multilingual

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#272)
- Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1058 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1061 | — |
| LMArena French | 1135 | — |
| LMArena German | 1080 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 966 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 894 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1111 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1111 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 51.9 (#292)
- Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 47.2% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1087 | — |

## Long Context

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#267)
- Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1088 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.1 (#284)
- Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1110 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1083 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1068 | — |
| LiveBench Language | 12.9% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better than Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.6 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct or Qwen3.6 35B-A3B better for coding?

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.2 versus 27.9 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B has 14.