Model comparison
Qwen3.6-27B vs Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)
Head-to-head evidence from 18 shared benchmark results across 5 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.
Public leaderboard positions: Qwen3.6-27B #93 (Estimated); Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) #53 (Supported). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.
Evidence parity. Qwen3.6-27B and Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) share 18 comparable benchmark results. 4 of 8 categories are comparable. 36 results are unique to Qwen3.6-27B; 3 to Qwen 3.6 Max (preview).
Updated July 23, 2026- Shared results
- 18
- Qwen3.6-27B only
- 36
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) only
- 3
- Comparable categories
- 4 / 8
Pick Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen3.6-27B only becomes the better choice if mathematics is the priority or you need the larger 262K context window.
Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 18 shared benchmark results across 5 evidence categories; 4 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.
Why this result
Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) is clearly ahead on the BenchAlign aggregate, 59.72 to 53.82. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)'s sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 73.9 against 53.3. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SuperGPQA, 66% to 73.9%. Qwen3.6-27B does hit back in mathematics, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
Qwen3.6-27B gives you the larger context window at 262K, compared with 256K for Qwen 3.6 Max (preview).
Category breakdown
Exact category averages are shown below. Not measured means BenchLM does not have enough sourced public coverage for that model and category.
| Category | Qwen3.6-27B | Δ | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Math | Qwen3.6-27B89.2 | Margin← 70.8 | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)18.4 |
| Coding | Qwen3.6-27B77.5 | Margin← 26.5 | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)51.0 |
| Knowledge | Qwen3.6-27B53.3 | Margin→ 20.6 | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)73.9 |
| Agentic | Qwen3.6-27B59.3 | Margin→ 6.1 | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)65.4 |
| Multimodal | Qwen3.6-27B76.7 | MarginNo overlap | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)Not measured |
Decisive benchmark drivers
The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.
More
- Source ↗
SuperGPQA
KnowledgeA 66%B 73.9%Winner: Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)Δ 7.9SuperGPQA: Qwen3.6-27B scored 66%; Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) scored 73.9%. Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) wins this benchmark. - Source ↗
Terminal-Bench 2.0
AgenticA 59.3%B 65.4%Winner: Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)Δ 6.1Terminal-Bench 2.0: Qwen3.6-27B scored 59.3%; Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) scored 65.4%. Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) wins this benchmark. - Source ↗
SWE-bench Pro
CodingA 53.5%B 57.3%Winner: Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)Δ 3.8SWE-bench Pro: Qwen3.6-27B scored 53.5%; Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) scored 57.3%. Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) wins this benchmark.
Operational comparison
Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.
| Metric | Qwen3.6-27B | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Comparison |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokens | Qwen3.6-27B$0 input / $0 output | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)Not available | A complete price comparison is not available. |
| Generation speedtokens per second | Qwen3.6-27BNot available | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)Not available | A complete speed comparison is not available. |
| First-answer latencyseconds to first token | Qwen3.6-27BNot available | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)Not available | A complete latency comparison is not available. |
| Context windowmaximum listed tokens | Qwen3.6-27B262K | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)256K | Qwen3.6-27B lists the larger context window. |
Benchmark Deep Dive
AgenticQwen 3.6 Max (preview) wins10 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6-27B | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0Source | 59.3% | 65.4% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads |
| Claw-EvalSource | 72.4% | — | Not comparable |
| QwenClawBenchSource | 53.4% | 59.0% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads |
| QwenWebBenchSource | 1487 | 1532 | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads |
| AndroidWorldSource | 70.3% | — | Not comparable |
| AA Agentic IndexSource | 27.0% | — | Not comparable |
| τ²-bench resultsSource | 94.2% | 95.9% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads |
| GDPval-AASource | 32.0% | — | Not comparable |
| GDPval-AASource | 1140 | — | Not comparable |
| Gert LabsSource | 54.84% | — | Not comparable |
CodingQwen3.6-27B wins9 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6-27B | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench VerifiedSource | 77.2% | — | Not comparable |
| SWE MultilingualSource | 71.3% | — | Not comparable |
| SWE-bench ProSource | 53.5% | 57.3% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0Source | 59.3% | 65.4% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads |
| LiveCodeBenchSource | 83.9% | — | Not comparable |
| NL2RepoSource | 36.2% | 42.9% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads |
| AA Coding IndexSource | 53.7% | — | Not comparable |
| AA-SciCodeSource | 39.8% | 46.9% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads |
| SciCodeSource | — | 47% | Not comparable |
Reasoning2 benchmarks
KnowledgeQwen 3.6 Max (preview) wins12 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6-27B | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-ProSource | 86.2% | — | Not comparable |
| MMLU-ReduxSource | 93.5% | — | Not comparable |
| SuperGPQASource | 66% | 73.9% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads |
| C-EvalSource | 91.4% | — | Not comparable |
| GPQASource | 87.8% | — | Not comparable |
| HLESource | 24% | — | Not comparable |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource | 37.0% | 40.0% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads |
| AA-GPQA DiamondSource | 84.2% | 88.8% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads |
| AA-HLESource | 21.6% | 28.9% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads |
| AA-Omniscience IndexSource | -19.8% | 10.2% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads |
| AA-Omniscience AccuracySource | 19.2% | 37.7% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads |
| AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource | 48.3% | 44.2% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads |
MathQwen3.6-27B wins7 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6-27B | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| HMMT Feb 2025Source | 93.8% | — | Not comparable |
| HMMT Nov 2025Source | 90.7% | — | Not comparable |
| HMMT Feb 2026Source | 84.3% | — | Not comparable |
| MMAnswerBenchSource | 80.8% | — | Not comparable |
| AIME26Source | 94.1% | — | Not comparable |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source | — | 23.103% | Not comparable |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source | — | 4.167% | Not comparable |
Multimodal16 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6-27B | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMMUSource | 82.9% | — | Not comparable |
| MMMU-ProSource | 75.8% | — | Not comparable |
| RealWorldQASource | 84.1% | — | Not comparable |
| DynaMathSource | 85.6% | — | Not comparable |
| MStarSource | 81.4% | — | Not comparable |
| SimpleVQASource | 56.1% | — | Not comparable |
| CharXivSource | 78.4% | — | Not comparable |
| CC-OCRSource | 81.2% | — | Not comparable |
| CountBenchSource | 97.8% | — | Not comparable |
| RefCOCO (avg)Source | 92.5% | — | Not comparable |
| ERQASource | 62.5% | — | Not comparable |
| Video-MME (with subtitle)Source | 87.7% | — | Not comparable |
| VideoMMMUSource | 84.4% | — | Not comparable |
| MLVU (M-Avg)Source | 86.6% | — | Not comparable |
| V*Source | 94.7% | — | Not comparable |
| AA-MMMU-ProSource | 74.6% | — | Not comparable |
Inst. Following1 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6-27B | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA-IFBenchSource | 67.6% | 76.6% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads |
Frequently Asked Questions (5)
Which is better, Qwen3.6-27B or Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)?
Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 59.72 to 53.82. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SuperGPQA, where the scores are 66% and 73.9%.
Which is better for knowledge tasks, Qwen3.6-27B or Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)?
Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 73.9 versus 53.3. Inside this category, AA-Omniscience Index is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Which is better for coding, Qwen3.6-27B or Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)?
Qwen3.6-27B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 77.5 versus 51. Inside this category, AA-SciCode is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Which is better for math, Qwen3.6-27B or Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)?
Qwen3.6-27B has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 89.2 versus 18.4. Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.
Which is better for agentic tasks, Qwen3.6-27B or Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)?
Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 65.4 versus 59.3. Inside this category, QwenWebBench is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Self-host vs API cost
Estimates at 50,000 req/day · 1000 tokens/req average.
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