Compare/Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) vs DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)

Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)vsDeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)

Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.

Alibaba

Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)

Input
$0.6/M
Output
$3.6/M
Speed
54 tok/s
TTFT
1.39s
DeepSeek

DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)

Input
$1.35/M
Output
$4/M
Speed
TTFT

Winner by Category

Cheaper
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)
Faster (tok/s)
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)
Lower Latency
DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)
Benchmarks (7-5)
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)

Pricing Comparison

MetricQwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)
Input ($/M tokens)$0.6$1.35
Output ($/M tokens)$3.6$4
Cost for 1M input + 100K output tokens:
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)$0.96
DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)$1.75

Speed Comparison

Output Speed (tokens/s) — higher is better
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)
54 tok/s
DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)
Time to First Token (seconds) — lower is better
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)
1.39s
DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)

Benchmark Comparison

Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks

Intelligence Index
45.018.8
Coding Index
41.315.9
Math Index
68.0
GPQA Diamond
89.3%70.8%
MMLU-Pro
84.4%
LiveCodeBench
61.7%
AIME 2025
68.0%
MATH-500
96.6%
Humanity's Last Exam
27.3%9.3%
SciCode
42.0%35.7%
IFBench
78.8%39.0%
TerminalBench
40.9%6.1%
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)7 wins
5 winsDeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) or DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)?

Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $1.35/M tokens vs $2.36/M for DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25).

Which model performs better on benchmarks?

Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) wins 7 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 5 for DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25). See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.

Which is faster for real-time applications?

Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) generates tokens faster at 54 tok/s vs 0 tok/s. However, DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) has lower time-to-first-token (0.00s vs 1.39s).

When should I use Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) vs DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)?

Choose based on your priorities: Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) for lower cost, Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) for stronger benchmark performance, and Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.