Step 3.5 Flash vs Qwen2.5-72B

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

Step 3.5 Flash has the cleaner overall profile here, landing at 66 versus 64. It is a real lead, but still close enough that category-level strengths matter more than the headline number.

Step 3.5 Flash's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 47.1 against 43.8. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is Terminal-Bench 2.0, 62 to 56.

Step 3.5 Flash gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 128K for Qwen2.5-72B.

Quick Verdict

Pick Step 3.5 Flash if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen2.5-72B only becomes the better choice if its workflow or ecosystem matters more than the raw scoreboard.

Agentic

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

60.2

Qwen2.5-72B

57.7

62
Terminal-Bench 2.0
56
66
BrowseComp
64
54
OSWorld-Verified
55

Coding

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

47.1

Qwen2.5-72B

43.8

77
HumanEval
75
48
SWE-bench Verified
46
45
LiveCodeBench
40
49
SWE-bench Pro
47

Multimodal & Grounded

Tie

Step 3.5 Flash

66.7

Qwen2.5-72B

66.7

64
MMMU-Pro
64
70
OfficeQA Pro
70

Reasoning

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

78.3

Qwen2.5-72B

75.8

82
SimpleQA
80
82
MuSR
78
83
BBH
81
74
LongBench v2
72
73
MRCRv2
71

Knowledge

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

60.8

Qwen2.5-72B

59.8

84
MMLU
83
83
GPQA
82
81
SuperGPQA
80
79
OpenBookQA
78
76
MMLU-Pro
75
12
HLE
11
71
FrontierScience
70

Instruction Following

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

87

Qwen2.5-72B

85

87
IFEval
85

Multilingual

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

82.8

Qwen2.5-72B

80.8

86
MGSM
84
81
MMLU-ProX
79

Mathematics

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

84.5

Qwen2.5-72B

83.5

85
AIME 2023
84
87
AIME 2024
86
86
AIME 2025
85
81
HMMT Feb 2023
80
83
HMMT Feb 2024
82
82
HMMT Feb 2025
81
84
BRUMO 2025
83
85
MATH-500
84

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Step 3.5 Flash or Qwen2.5-72B?

Step 3.5 Flash is ahead overall, 66 to 64. The biggest single separator in this matchup is Terminal-Bench 2.0, where the scores are 62 and 56.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Qwen2.5-72B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.8 versus 59.8. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Step 3.5 Flash or Qwen2.5-72B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 47.1 versus 43.8. Inside this category, LiveCodeBench is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Step 3.5 Flash or Qwen2.5-72B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 84.5 versus 83.5. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Step 3.5 Flash or Qwen2.5-72B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 78.3 versus 75.8. Inside this category, MuSR is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Qwen2.5-72B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.2 versus 57.7. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Qwen2.5-72B?

Step 3.5 Flash and Qwen2.5-72B are effectively tied for multimodal and grounded tasks here, both landing at 66.7 on average.

Which is better for instruction following, Step 3.5 Flash or Qwen2.5-72B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 87 versus 85. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Qwen2.5-72B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.8 versus 80.8. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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