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Llama 3.1-405B vs Qwen 3.6 Max (Preview)

Verdict

Qwen 3.6 Max (Preview) leads 3–0 across 3 shared benchmarks.

Llama 3.1-405B 0 · Qwen 3.6 Max (Preview) 3 · higher isn't always better — see caveats.

Per-benchmark head-to-head

Reported scores — protocols may differ. How we compare

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Llama 3.1-405BQwen 3.6 Max (Preview)

Capabilities

Reasoning

Reasoning: Qwen 3.6 Max (Preview) leads 2–0 across 2 shared reasoning benchmarks (largest gap: GPQA diamond, 85.44 vs 34.55 — single evaluator).

2 reproduced2 unverified

What the labs claim

Vendor claims — compare against the measured scores above. A claim is what a developer says about its own model, not an independent measurement.

Llama 3.1-405B

Context Handling

  • “These are multilingual and have a significantly longer context length of 128K, state-of-the-art tool use, and overall stronger reasoning capabilities.”
    ai.meta.com2024

General

  • “Llama 3.1 405B is in a class of its own, with unmatched flexibility, control, and state-of-the-art capabilities that rival the best closed source models.”
    ai.meta.com2024
  • “Llama 3.1 405B is the first openly available model that rivals the top AI models when it comes to state-of-the-art capabilities in general knowledge, steerability, math, tool use”
    ai.meta.com2024

Qwen 3.6 Max (Preview)

Agentic / Tool Use

  • “Compared to Qwen3.6-Plus, this preview release brings stronger world knowledge and instruction following, along with significant agentic coding improvements across a wide range of benchmarks.”
    qwen.ai2026
  • “improved real-world agent and knowledge reliability performance”
    qwen.ai2026

Coding

  • “It achieves the top score on six major coding benchmarks - SWE-bench Pro, Terminal-Bench 2.0, SkillsBench, QwenClawBench, QwenWebBench, and SciCode - with substantial gains over its predecessor”
    qwen.ai2026
A higher number is not always a better model. Each score is task performance under a disclosed harness. Of the 6 measurements across 3 shared benchmarks, 6 single-evaluator or undisclosed-protocol reports; 67% are independently reproduced. Qwen 3.6 Max (Preview) pricing is cross-check disputed — weigh cost claims with the same caution as benchmark wins. Follow any benchmark to its integrity grade before reading a win as decisive.

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