Model comparison
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct vs Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
Head-to-head evidence from 1 shared benchmark result across 1 category. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.
Public leaderboard positions: Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct unranked (Not scored); Qwen3.6-35B-A3B #104 (Estimated). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.
Evidence parity. Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B share 1 comparable benchmark result. 1 of 8 categories are comparable. 4 results are unique to Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct; 56 to Qwen3.6-35B-A3B.
Updated July 23, 2026- Shared results
- 1
- Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct only
- 4
- Qwen3.6-35B-A3B only
- 56
- Comparable categories
- 1 / 8
Treat this as a split decision. Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct makes more sense if you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is the better fit if knowledge is the priority or you need the larger 262K context window.
Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 1 shared benchmark result across 1 evidence category; 1 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.
Why this result
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B finish on the same BenchAlign overall score, so this is less about a single winner and more about where the edge shows up. The BenchAlign headline says tie; the benchmark table is where the real choice happens.
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is the reasoning model in the pair, while Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct 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 128K for Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct.
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 | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct | Δ | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knowledge | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct40.9 | Margin→ 10.5 | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B51.4 |
| Agentic | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructNot measured | MarginNo overlap | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B51.5 |
| Coding | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructNot measured | MarginNo overlap | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B73.8 |
| Math | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructNot measured | MarginNo overlap | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B88.2 |
| Multimodal | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructNot measured | MarginNo overlap | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B76.3 |
| Inst. Following | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct75.8 | MarginNo overlap | Qwen3.6-35B-A3BNot measured |
Decisive benchmark drivers
The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.
More
- Source ↗
GPQA
KnowledgeA 40.9%B 86%Winner: Qwen3.6-35B-A3BΔ 45.1GPQA: Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct scored 40.9%; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B scored 86%. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B wins this benchmark.
Operational comparison
Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.
| Metric | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Comparison |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokens | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructNot available | Qwen3.6-35B-A3BNot available | A complete price comparison is not available. |
| Generation speedtokens per second | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructNot available | Qwen3.6-35B-A3BNot available | A complete speed comparison is not available. |
| First-answer latencyseconds to first token | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructNot available | Qwen3.6-35B-A3BNot available | A complete latency comparison is not available. |
| Context windowmaximum listed tokens | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct128K | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B262K | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B lists the larger context window. |
Benchmark Deep Dive
Agentic16 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| BFCL v4Source | 44.2% | — | Not comparable |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0Source | — | 51.5% | Not comparable |
| Claw-EvalSource | — | 68.7% | Not comparable |
| QwenClawBenchSource | — | 52.6% | Not comparable |
| QwenWebBenchSource | — | 1397 | Not comparable |
| τ³-bench resultsSource | — | 67.2% | Not comparable |
| VITA-BenchSource | — | 35.6% | Not comparable |
| DeepPlanningSource | — | 25.9% | Not comparable |
| ToolathlonSource | — | 26.9% | Not comparable |
| MCP AtlasSource | — | 62.8% | Not comparable |
| WideResearchSource | — | 60.1% | Not comparable |
| AA Agentic IndexSource | — | 21.4% | Not comparable |
| τ²-bench resultsSource | — | 95.3% | Not comparable |
| GDPval-AASource | — | 27.4% | Not comparable |
| GDPval-AASource | — | 1049 | Not comparable |
| Gert LabsSource | — | 42.65% | Not comparable |
Coding8 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench VerifiedSource | — | 73.4% | Not comparable |
| SWE MultilingualSource | — | 67.2% | Not comparable |
| SWE-bench ProSource | — | 49.5% | Not comparable |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0Source | — | 51.5% | Not comparable |
| LiveCodeBenchSource | — | 80.4% | Not comparable |
| NL2RepoSource | — | 29.4% | Not comparable |
| AA Coding IndexSource | — | 41.9% | Not comparable |
| AA-SciCodeSource | — | 35.8% | Not comparable |
Reasoning2 benchmarks
KnowledgeQwen3.6-35B-A3B wins13 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-ReduxSource | 78.1% | — | Not comparable |
| GPQASource | 40.9% | 86% | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads |
| GPQA-DSource | 40.9% | — | Not comparable |
| MMLU-ProSource | — | 85.2% | Not comparable |
| SuperGPQASource | — | 64.7% | Not comparable |
| C-EvalSource | — | 90% | Not comparable |
| HLESource | — | 21.4% | Not comparable |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource | — | 31.6% | Not comparable |
| AA-GPQA DiamondSource | — | 84.1% | Not comparable |
| AA-HLESource | — | 20.2% | Not comparable |
| AA-Omniscience IndexSource | — | -21.4% | Not comparable |
| AA-Omniscience AccuracySource | — | 18.9% | Not comparable |
| AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource | — | 49.7% | Not comparable |
Math5 benchmarks
Multimodal15 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMMUSource | — | 81.7% | Not comparable |
| MMMU-ProSource | — | 75.3% | Not comparable |
| RealWorldQASource | — | 85.3% | Not comparable |
| OmniDocBench 1.5Source | — | 89.9% | Not comparable |
| CharXivSource | — | 78% | Not comparable |
| SimpleVQASource | — | 58.9% | Not comparable |
| CC-OCRSource | — | 81.9% | Not comparable |
| AI2D_TESTSource | — | 92.7% | Not comparable |
| RefCOCO (avg)Source | — | 92.0% | Not comparable |
| ODINW13Source | — | 50.8% | Not comparable |
| Video-MME (with subtitle)Source | — | 86.6% | Not comparable |
| Video-MME (w/o subtitle)Source | — | 82.5% | Not comparable |
| VideoMMMUSource | — | 83.7% | Not comparable |
| MLVU (M-Avg)Source | — | 86.2% | Not comparable |
| AA-MMMU-ProSource | — | 75.0% | Not comparable |
Frequently Asked Questions (2)
Which is better, Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B are tied on the BenchAlign overall score, so the right pick depends on which category matters most for your use case.
Which is better for knowledge tasks, Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 51.4 versus 40.9. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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