Head-to-head comparison across 2benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
56
ZAYA1-8B
62
Verified leaderboard positions: Qwen3.5-35B-A3B #18 · ZAYA1-8B unranked
Pick ZAYA1-8B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen3.5-35B-A3B only becomes the better choice if instruction following is the priority or you need the larger 262K context window.
Knowledge
+6.2 difference
Inst. Following
+17.9 difference
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
ZAYA1-8B
$0 / $0
$0 / $0
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
262K
131K
Pick ZAYA1-8B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen3.5-35B-A3B only becomes the better choice if instruction following is the priority or you need the larger 262K context window.
ZAYA1-8B is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 62 to 56. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B gives you the larger context window at 262K, compared with 131K for ZAYA1-8B.
ZAYA1-8B is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 62 to 56. The biggest single separator in this matchup is GPQA, where the scores are 84.2% and 71%.
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.3 versus 73.1. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 91.9 versus 74. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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