Qwen2.5 72B Instruct vs Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking leads Qwen2.5 72B Instruct on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 11.2 to 7.7, and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct costs 3.0x less per output token ($0.40 vs $1.20 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 28 benchmarks have a result for both.
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct or Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Qwen2.5 72B Instruct for output tokens 3.0x cheaper ($0.40 vs $1.20 per million) and work measured by LMArena Text: coding or LMArena Text: software and IT, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 28
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct only
- 25
- Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking only
- 2
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Neither has a coding score yet.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking leads, 11.2 against 7.7.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking takes 262K tokens against 33K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct $0.0006, Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking $0.0008 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct not benchmarked, Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Reasoning, 18.7 points apart on average over 3 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- LMArena Text: Chinese: Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 1273 against Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking 1407, 22.4 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct $0.40 against Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking $1.20 per million output tokens, 3.0x apart.
- Context window
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct takes 33K tokens, Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking 262K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct | Bars | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 2 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 3 | ||
| Math | 0 | 2 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 4 | ||
| General | 0 | 16 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 28 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index02
| Benchmark | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 17.4 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 27.6% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 4.5% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| WeirdML | 16.0% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1292 | 1392 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1292 | 1393 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| Neither model has a result on the other 33 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 7.7 | 11.2 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 129.0 | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 34.5% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| METR time horizons | 35.8% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| BALROG | 16.2% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| TheAgentCompany | 5.7% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 37 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index03
| Benchmark | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 49.1% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 3.6% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 49.1% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| BIG-Bench Hard | 79.8% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1271 | 1371 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1245 | 1376 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1279 | 1384 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | 14.0 | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 14.0% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 8.1% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| MATH level 5 | 63.2% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1283 | 1399 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1290 | 1390 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04
| Benchmark | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 72.0% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| MMLU | 85.3% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| AI2 Reasoning Challenge | 94.5% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1275 | 1384 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1258 | 1392 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1288 | 1364 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1253 | 1360 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
Web designNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 9 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index016
| Benchmark | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 36.9% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| DTBench | 62.9% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| LMCA | 13.4% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| HellaSwag | 84.8% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| WinoGrande | 82.3% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| PIQA | 82.6% | Not measured | Only Qwen2.5 72B Instruct measured |
| LMArena Text | 1269 | 1368 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1254 | 1344 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1221 | 1314 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: English | 1283 | 1392 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1252 | 1342 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1273 | 1407 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: German | 1234 | 1356 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1180 | 1280 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1188 | 1310 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: French | 1280 | 1351 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1255 | 1358 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1264 | 1337 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1345 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1272 | 1346 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1281 | 1353 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1247 | 1330 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1211 | 1312 | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
| Neither model has a result on the other 23 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Qwen | Qwen |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | September 19, 2024 | September 11, 2025 |
| Context window | 33K | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.36 | $0.15 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.40 | $1.20 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Qwen2.5 72B Instruct better than Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Qwen2.5 72B Instruct for output tokens 3.0x cheaper ($0.40 vs $1.20 per million) and work measured by LMArena Text: coding or LMArena Text: software and IT, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct or Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking?
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct costs $0.36 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking costs $0.15 and $1.20. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct or Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking?
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking, with 262K tokens against 33K.
How many benchmarks is the Qwen2.5 72B Instruct vs Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking comparison based on?
28 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Qwen2.5 72B Instruct's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.