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Every score has a dated snapshot.

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  3. Llama 3.1 405B vs Qwen3.8 27B

Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 16, 2026

Llama 3.1 405B vs Qwen3.8 27B benchmark

In this head-to-head showdown, Qwen3.8 27B delivers higher overall intelligence and human-preferred responses (Elo 1,398 vs 1,370), while Qwen3.8 27B leads in SWE-bench software engineering benchmarks (58.8%), while Qwen3.8 27B is more budget-friendly at $0.4/1M per 1M output tokens. Review the complete breakdown below to determine which model best fits your performance and budget requirements.

Executive Comparison Verdict

Bottom Line: Qwen3.8 27B holds the advantage over Llama 3.1 405B in overall benchmark performance and human evaluation rankings. Choose Qwen3.8 27B for demanding workloads, or review the breakdown below to compare coding and pricing metrics.
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Verified Head-to-Head Advantage Breakdown

10 direct benchmark disciplines evaluated across capability, speed, and cost

Llama 3.1 405B (2)Qwen3.8 27B (8)
Llama 3.1 405B
2 of 10 Wins
✓LiveBench✓GPQA Diamond
Qwen3.8 27B
8 of 10 Wins
✓Preference Elo✓Coding Elo✓SWE-bench✓Time to first token✓Output speed✓Input price✓Output price✓Context window
Meta
Leads 2 of 10 metrics
Llama 3.1 405B

Meta flagship open-weight 405B dense foundation model with 128k context window.

Elo 1,370$3.5/1M out
Alibaba
Leads 8 of 10 metrics
Qwen3.8 27B

Alibaba open-weight 27B drop dated Aug 14 2026. Dense enough to self-host; not a frontier MoE.

27B DenseElo 1,398$0.4/1M out
Top Rival Showdowns for Llama 3.1 405B
All Matchups
Compare vs:vs Claude Opus 4.5vs GPT-5vs Gemini 3 Provs Grok 4.6vs DeepSeek V4 Pro
Preference LeaderQwen3.8 27B Wins

Qwen3.8 27B

Δ 28 Arena Elo pts

Throughput LeaderQwen3.8 27B Wins

Qwen3.8 27B

152 tok/s

Value per Dollar LeaderQwen3.8 27B Wins

Qwen3.8 27B

$0.4 / 1M output

Capability Percentiles

Relative percentile scores computed across all active models in the benchmark catalog.

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Leaders Matchup Capability Radar

Comparing top Western standard models with China's leading frontier rival across 6 skill dimensions. Tap any spoke or dot to inspect.

Tap any node to inspect
Percentile 0–100
Head-to-Head Comparison

Overall Matchup Breakdown

Category wins across reasoning intelligence, generation speed, and token cost.

Llama 3.1 405B (2)vsQwen3.8 27B (8)
Llama 3.1 405B: 2W (20%)Overall: Qwen3.8 27BQwen3.8 27B: 8W (80%)
← Llama 3.1 405BQwen3.8 27B →
🏆Qwen3.8 27B(3/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy

Benchmark
Llama 3.1 405BvsQwen3.8 27B
Preference Elo
1,370vs1,398+28
Coding Elo
1,385vs1,422+37
SWE-bench
58.4%vs58.8%+0.4%
LiveBench
61.2%vs60.6%+0.6%
GPQA Diamond
75.2%vs73.4%+1.8%
Llama 3.1 405B: 2WQwen3.8 27B: 3W
🏆Qwen3.8 27B(2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Benchmark
Llama 3.1 405BvsQwen3.8 27B
Output speed
42 tok/svs152 tok/s+110 tok/s
Time to first token
360 msvs140 ms+220 ms
Llama 3.1 405B: 0WQwen3.8 27B: 2W
🏆Qwen3.8 27B(3/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Benchmark
Llama 3.1 405BvsQwen3.8 27B
Output price
$3.5/1Mvs$0.4/1M+$3.1/1M
Input price
$1.25/1Mvs$0.1/1M+$1.15/1M
Context window
128kvs131k+3k
Llama 3.1 405B: 0WQwen3.8 27B: 3W

Side-by-Side Benchmark Matrix

Preference Elo+28
Llama 3.1 405B1,370
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen3.8 27B1,398
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
Coding Elo+37
Llama 3.1 405B1,385
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen3.8 27B1,422
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
LiveBench+0.6%
Llama 3.1 405B61.2%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen3.8 27B60.6%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
SWE-bench+0.4%
Llama 3.1 405B58.4%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen3.8 27B58.8%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
GPQA Diamond+1.8%
Llama 3.1 405B75.2%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen3.8 27B73.4%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
Time to first token+220 ms
Llama 3.1 405B360 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen3.8 27B140 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
Output speed+110 tok/s
Llama 3.1 405B42 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen3.8 27B152 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
Input price+$1.15/1M
Llama 3.1 405B$1.25/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen3.8 27B$0.1/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
Output price+$3.1/1M
Llama 3.1 405B$3.5/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen3.8 27B$0.4/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
Context window+3k
Llama 3.1 405B128k
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen3.8 27B131k
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
BenchmarkLlama 3.1 405BQwen3.8 27BAdvantage Delta
Preference Elo
1,370
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
1,398
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
+28
Coding Elo
1,385
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
1,422
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
+37
LiveBench
61.2%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
60.6%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
+0.6%
SWE-bench
58.4%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
58.8%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
+0.4%
GPQA Diamond
75.2%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
73.4%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
+1.8%
Time to first token
360 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
140 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
+220 ms
Output speed
42 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
152 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
+110 tok/s
Input price
$1.25/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
$0.1/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
+$1.15/1M
Output price
$3.5/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
$0.4/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
+$3.1/1M
Context window
128k
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
131k
seed-bootstrap · Aug 16, 2026
+3k
Interactive Simulator (USD)

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Simulate monthly production API costs in USD (US Dollar).

Save up to 90% with Qwen3.8 27B
Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo
Quick Presets:
Token Ratio (In vs Out)70% In / 30% Out
RAG / Search (10% out)Coding / Chat (50% out)
Llama 3.1 405B$96.25 / mo
In: $43.75Out: $52.5
Qwen3.8 27B$9.50 / mo
In: $3.5Out: $6
Estimated Cost Delta

Qwen3.8 27B is estimated to save $86.75/month ($1,041/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

  • 1
    Qwen3.8 27B:Pick Qwen3.8 27B when repo-level coding accuracy is the constraint.
  • 2
    Qwen3.8 27B:Pick Qwen3.8 27B when time-to-first-token matters more than peak Elo.
  • 3
    Qwen3.8 27B:Pick Qwen3.8 27B as the default general assistant.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsQwen3.8 27B

Higher SWE-bench (58.8%).

High-volume chatQwen3.8 27B

Lower output list price ($0.4/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIQwen3.8 27B

Lower TTFT (140 ms).

Long-document RAGQwen3.8 27B

Larger window (131k).

Screenshots / visionQwen3.8 27B

Qwen3.8 27B is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target WorkloadRecommended PickEvaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agentsQwen3.8 27BHigher SWE-bench (58.8%).
High-volume chatQwen3.8 27BLower output list price ($0.4/1M).
Voice / low-latency UIQwen3.8 27BLower TTFT (140 ms).
Long-document RAGQwen3.8 27BLarger window (131k).
Screenshots / visionQwen3.8 27BQwen3.8 27B is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

View all news
launchAug 14, 2026

Qwen3.8 27B (Aug 14): dense enough to self-host, not a frontier MoE

Alibaba open-weight 27B drop. Local/open-weight lists should see it. It will not win frontier-agents.

Community Sentiment

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CompareLLM AI Matrix

Verified Head-to-Head Telemetry

LIVE BENCHMARK
VS
Meta

Llama 3.1 405B

Elo 1,370
SWE-bench58.4%
Speed (tok/s)42 tok/s
Input / 1M Tokens$1.25/1M
Output / 1M Tokens$3.5/1M
Alibaba

Qwen3.8 27B

Elo 1,398
SWE-bench58.8%
Speed (tok/s)152 tok/s
Input / 1M Tokens$0.1/1M
Output / 1M Tokens$0.4/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Llama 3.1 405B or Qwen3.8 27B?
Qwen3.8 27B has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,398). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.
Which is better at coding, Llama 3.1 405B or Qwen3.8 27B?
Qwen3.8 27B leads SWE-bench at 58.8% vs 58.4%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.
Which is cheaper to run in production?
Qwen3.8 27B output tokens are $0.4/1M versus $3.5/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, Llama 3.1 405B or Qwen3.8 27B?
Qwen3.8 27B has the lower time-to-first-token (140 ms vs 360 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.
Which has the larger context window?
Qwen3.8 27B accepts 131k tokens versus 128k.
Can I self-host either model?
Both Llama 3.1 405B and Qwen3.8 27B are marked open-weights. Hosting cost is not in this table.
Are these scores from CompareLLM’s own evals?
No. V1 aggregates public leaderboards (and optional first-party latency pings). Each cell names its source and date. Read /methodology.
What does preference Elo mean on this page?
Preference Elo is a crowd vote from LMArena / Arena. People see two hidden answers and pick the one they like more. The model that wins more often gets a higher Elo. That means people preferred it — not that it passed a school test. It is not SWE-bench, not accuracy, and not a number we invent. Llama 3.1 405B and Qwen3.8 27B Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Related news

  • launch · Aug 14, 2026

    Qwen3.8 27B (Aug 14): dense enough to self-host, not a frontier MoE

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All Llama 3.1 405B matchups →|All Qwen3.8 27B matchups →
Llama 3.1 405B vs Llama 3.1 70B (next llama)Llama 4 Maverick vs Qwen3.8 27BQwen QwQ 32B vs Qwen3.8 27BLlama 4 Scout vs Qwen3.8 27BQwen 2.5 Coder 32B vs Qwen3.8 27BQwen 3 Max vs Qwen3.8 27B