Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.
Step 3.5 Flash is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 66 to 62. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Step 3.5 Flash's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 47.1 against 40.7. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMMU-Pro, 64 to 56.
Step 3.5 Flash is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.10 input / $0.30 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Qwen3.5 397B. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. Step 3.5 Flash gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 128K for Qwen3.5 397B.
Pick Step 3.5 Flash if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen3.5 397B only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill.
Step 3.5 Flash
60.2
Qwen3.5 397B
56.9
Step 3.5 Flash
47.1
Qwen3.5 397B
40.7
Step 3.5 Flash
66.7
Qwen3.5 397B
61.4
Step 3.5 Flash
78.3
Qwen3.5 397B
75.9
Step 3.5 Flash
60.8
Qwen3.5 397B
59.3
Step 3.5 Flash
87
Qwen3.5 397B
82
Step 3.5 Flash
82.8
Qwen3.5 397B
78.8
Step 3.5 Flash
84.5
Qwen3.5 397B
81.6
Step 3.5 Flash is ahead overall, 66 to 62. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMMU-Pro, where the scores are 64 and 56.
Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.8 versus 59.3. Inside this category, MMLU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 47.1 versus 40.7. Inside this category, SWE-bench Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 84.5 versus 81.6. Inside this category, MATH-500 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 78.3 versus 75.9. Inside this category, MuSR is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.2 versus 56.9. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 66.7 versus 61.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 87 versus 82. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.8 versus 78.8. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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