Head-to-head comparison across 3benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
Claude Sonnet 4.5
68
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
64
Verified leaderboard positions: Claude Sonnet 4.5 unranked · Qwen3.6-35B-A3B #13
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B only becomes the better choice if you need the larger 262K context window or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.
Agentic
+3.8 difference
Coding
+10.3 difference
Knowledge
+22.9 difference
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
$3 / $15
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
200K
262K
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B only becomes the better choice if you need the larger 262K context window or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 68 to 64. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Claude Sonnet 4.5's sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 83.4 against 60.5. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is VITA-Bench, 17.0% to 35.6%.
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude Sonnet 4.5 is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B gives you the larger context window at 262K, compared with 200K for Claude Sonnet 4.5.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 68 to 64. The biggest single separator in this matchup is VITA-Bench, where the scores are 17.0% and 35.6%.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 83.4 versus 60.5. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 77.2 versus 66.9. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 55.3 versus 51.5. Inside this category, VITA-Bench is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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