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BenchLM

Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.8 vs Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 17 shared benchmark results across 6 categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.

85/100
Margin
16.0pts
← winning
69/100
3 category wins1 category wins

Verified leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.8 #3; Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) unranked

Evidence parity. Claude Opus 4.8 and Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) share 17 comparable benchmark results. 4 of 8 categories are comparable. 36 results are unique to Claude Opus 4.8; 5 to Qwen 3.6 Max (preview).

Updated July 12, 2026
Shared results
17
Claude Opus 4.8 only
36
Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) only
5
Comparable categories
4 / 8

Pick Claude Opus 4.8 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 17 shared benchmark results across 6 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

Claude Opus 4.8 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 85 to 69. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Claude Opus 4.8's sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 53.9 against 18.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4), 31.250% to 4.167%. Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) does hit back in knowledge, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Claude Opus 4.8 gives you the larger context window at 1M, 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 scores and score margins for Claude Opus 4.8 and Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)
CategoryClaude Opus 4.8ΔQwen 3.6 Max (preview)
MathClaude Opus 4.853.9Margin← 35.5Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)18.4
CodingClaude Opus 4.876.4Margin← 21.9Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)54.5
AgenticClaude Opus 4.880.3Margin← 14.9Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)65.4
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.862.7Margin→ 11.2Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)73.9
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.877.0MarginNo overlapQwen 3.6 Max (preview)Not measured

Decisive benchmark drivers

The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.

More
A · Claude Opus 4.8B · Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)

  1. FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)

    Math
    Source ↗
    A 31.250%B 4.167%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 27.1
    FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4): Claude Opus 4.8 scored 31.250%; Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) scored 4.167%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

  2. FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)

    Math
    Source ↗
    A 47.241%B 23.103%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 24.1
    FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3): Claude Opus 4.8 scored 47.241%; Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) scored 23.103%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

  3. SWE-bench Pro

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 69.2%B 57.3%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 11.9
    SWE-bench Pro: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 69.2%; Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) scored 57.3%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

  4. Terminal-Bench 2.0

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 74.6%B 65.4%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 9.2
    Terminal-Bench 2.0: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 74.6%; Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) scored 65.4%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.

MetricClaude Opus 4.8Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)Comparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Opus 4.8$5 input / $25 outputQwen 3.6 Max (preview)Not availableA complete price comparison is not available.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Opus 4.8Not availableQwen 3.6 Max (preview)Not availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Opus 4.8Not availableQwen 3.6 Max (preview)Not availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Opus 4.81MQwen 3.6 Max (preview)256KClaude Opus 4.8 lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

AgenticClaude Opus 4.8 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)Result
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 74.6%65.4%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
BrowseCompSource 84.3%—Not comparable
DeepSearchQASource 93.1%—Not comparable
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 83.4%—Not comparable
Finance Agent v2Source 53.9%—Not comparable
GDPval-AASource 1600—Not comparable
MCP AtlasSource 82.2%—Not comparable
ToolathlonSource 59.9%—Not comparable
Gert LabsSource 72.97%—Not comparable
AA Agentic IndexSource 47.2%—Not comparable
Tau2-TelecomSource 94.4%95.9%Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads
GDPval-AASource 55.0%—Not comparable
ResearchClawBenchSource 21.1%—Not comparable
OSWorld 2.0Source 20.6%—Not comparable
AA BriefcaseSource 1354—Not comparable
AA AutomationBenchSource 48.5%—Not comparable
AA EnterpriseOps-GymSource 44.0%—Not comparable
AA Harvey LABSource 7.5%—Not comparable
AA Tau3 BankingSource 27.6%—Not comparable
QwenClawBenchSource —59.0%Not comparable
QwenWebBenchSource —1532Not comparable
CodingClaude Opus 4.8 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)Result
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 88.6%—Not comparable
SWE-bench ProSource 69.2%57.3%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
SWE MultilingualSource 84.4%—Not comparable
SWE MultimodalSource 38.4%—Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 74.6%65.4%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
cursorBench31Source 58.4%—Not comparable
cursorBench32Source 62.3%—Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource 74.3%—Not comparable
Terminal-Bench HardSource 58.3%43.9%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-SciCodeSource 53.5%46.9%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
FrontierCodeSource 46.5%—Not comparable
AA Terminal-Bench 2.1Source 84.6%—Not comparable
SciCodeSource —47%Not comparable
NL2RepoSource —42.9%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)Result
AA-LCRSource 67.7%69.7%Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads
CritPtSource 20.9%3.7%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
KnowledgeQwen 3.6 Max (preview) wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)Result
GPQASource 93.6%—Not comparable
GPQA-DSource 93.6%—Not comparable
HLESource 57.9%—Not comparable
HLE w/o toolsSource 49.8%—Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 55.7%40.0%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 92.0%88.8%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-HLESource 45.7%28.9%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource 27.4%10.2%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 46.6%37.7%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 35.9%44.2%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
SuperGPQASource —73.9%Not comparable
MathClaude Opus 4.8 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)Result
USAMO 2026Source 96.7%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source 47.241%23.103%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source 31.250%4.167%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
Multilingual
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)Result
INCLUDESource 87.6%—Not comparable
Multimodal
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)Result
OfficeQA ProSource 66.2%—Not comparable
ScreenSpot ProSource 87.9%—Not comparable
CharXivSource 89.9%—Not comparable
CharXiv w/o toolsSource 80.5%—Not comparable
Design Arena WebsiteSource 1281—Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)Result
AA-IFBenchSource 62.2%76.6%Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads
Frequently Asked Questions (5)

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.8 or Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)?

Claude Opus 4.8 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 85 to 69. The biggest single separator in this matchup is FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4), where the scores are 31.250% and 4.167%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Opus 4.8 or Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)?

Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 73.9 versus 62.7. Inside this category, AA-Omniscience Index is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.8 or Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 76.4 versus 54.5. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench Hard is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Claude Opus 4.8 or Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 53.9 versus 18.4. Inside this category, FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4) is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Claude Opus 4.8 or Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 80.3 versus 65.4. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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