Verdict
Built from the measurements below
- Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B is more accurate: 57.5% against 37.5% on the same 80 questions, a 20.0-point gap that is statistically significant.
- Qwen3.6 35B A3B is 4.1× cheaper per question as billed ($0.0037 vs $0.015), reasoning tokens included.
- Qwen3.6 35B A3B generates text 3.0× faster: 135 tokens per second against 44.
- Qwen3.6 35B A3B starts answering sooner: 0.4 s to the first token, against 3.1 s for Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B.
- Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B accepts more context: 1M tokens against 262k.
Which should you choose?
Choose Qwen3.6 35B A3B for the lower cost per correct answer ($0.0099 against $0.026), faster streaming, a quicker first token and more hosts to choose from on OpenRouter (10 against 5). Choose Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B for the most accurate answers of the two and a 1M-token context window. The widest subject gap is in science: Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B answered 21 of 30 correctly, Qwen3.6 35B A3B 9 of 30. With so few questions per subject, treat this as a lead to test on your own prompts, not a result.
Accuracy gap -20.0 points (z = -2.53). We call a winner only when z is at least 1.96, the usual 95% threshold. Speed, latency and price need a 10% margin.