Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 16, 2026

DeepSeek R1 vs Qwen 3 Max benchmark

Name: DeepSeek R1 vs Qwen 3 Max AI benchmark comparison
Creator: CompareLLM
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This page compares DeepSeek R1 (DeepSeek) and Qwen 3 Max (Alibaba) using the latest snapshots we have as of Aug 16, 2026. On preference Elo, Qwen 3 Max is ahead by 160 points (1,518 vs 1,358; seed-bootstrap (Aug 1, 2026)). On SWE-bench coding, Qwen 3 Max resolves 67.8% versus 65.2% (seed-bootstrap (Aug 1, 2026)). Qwen 3 Max streams faster (80 tok/s) while DeepSeek R1 is the cheaper output token ($2.5/1M). Qwen 3 Max has the larger context window (262k tokens). Every cell below is a dated snapshot from a named public source — we do not invent missing scores, and we do not run SWE-bench ourselves.

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DeepSeek

DeepSeek R1

Open-weights reasoning model trained with large-scale RL.

Elo 1,358$2.5/1M out

Alibaba

Qwen 3 Max

Alibaba flagship. Strong math and multilingual code.

Elo 1,518$3.9/1M out

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Model A

Model B

Quick vs:vs Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Claude 3.7 Sonnet

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

DeepSeek R1 (2)vsQwen 3 Max (8)

DeepSeek R1: 2W (20%)Overall: Qwen 3 MaxQwen 3 Max: 8W (80%)

← DeepSeek R1Qwen 3 Max →

Qwen 3 Max (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

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

Preference Elo

1,358vs1,518

Coding Elo

—vs1,526

SWE-bench

65.2%vs67.8%

LiveBench

59%vs69.4%

GPQA Diamond

79.8%vs83.1%

DeepSeek R1: 0WQwen 3 Max: 5W

Qwen 3 Max (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

62 tok/svs80 tok/s

Time to first token

420 msvs280 ms

DeepSeek R1: 0WQwen 3 Max: 2W

DeepSeek R1 (2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$2.5/1Mvs$3.9/1M

Input price

$0.7/1Mvs$0.78/1M

Context window

64kvs262k

DeepSeek R1: 2WQwen 3 Max: 1W

Capability Matchup Radar

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Each spoke is a skill. Farther from the center is better (0–100th percentile). Tap any dot to inspect details.

Tap any node to inspect

Percentile 0–100

Dimensional AdvantageQwen 3 Max 5/6

Preference Elo

Qwen 3 Max

160 pts advantage

Throughput Speed

Qwen 3 Max

18 tok/s faster

Price Efficiency

DeepSeek R1

$1.40/1M cheaper

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

—

Elo

High is better

1,358

EloHigh is better

1,518+12%

Code Elo

High is better

—

Code EloHigh is better

1,526

LiveBench

High is better

59%

LiveBenchHigh is better

69.4%+18%

SWE-bench

High is better

65.2%

SWE-benchHigh is better

67.8%+4%

GPQA

High is better

79.8%

GPQAHigh is better

83.1%+4%

TTFT

Low is better

420 ms

TTFTLow is better

280 ms+50%

Speed

High is better

62 tok/s

SpeedHigh is better

80 tok/s+29%

In $

Low is better

+11%$0.7/1M

In $Low is better

$0.78/1M

Out $

Low is better

+56%$2.5/1M

Out $Low is better

$3.9/1M

Context

High is better

64k

ContextHigh is better

262k+310%

Interactive Simulator

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Simulate monthly production API costs based on published $/1M tokens.

Save up to 28% with DeepSeek R1

Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo

Quick Presets:

Token Ratio (In vs Out)70% In / 30% Out

RAG / Search (10% out)Coding / Chat (50% out)

DeepSeek R1$62.00 / mo

In: $24.50Out: $37.50

Qwen 3 Max$85.80 / mo

In: $27.30Out: $58.50

Estimated Cost Delta

DeepSeek R1 is estimated to save $23.80/month ($286/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

1
Qwen 3 Max:Pick Qwen 3 Max when repo-level coding accuracy is the constraint.
2
DeepSeek R1:Pick DeepSeek R1 when you are optimizing output cost.
3
Qwen 3 Max:Pick Qwen 3 Max when time-to-first-token matters more than peak Elo.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsQwen 3 Max

Higher SWE-bench (67.8%).

High-volume chatDeepSeek R1

Lower output list price ($2.5/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIQwen 3 Max

Lower TTFT (280 ms).

Long-document RAGQwen 3 Max

Larger window (262k).

Screenshots / visionQwen 3 Max

Qwen 3 Max is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Qwen 3 Max	Higher SWE-bench (67.8%).
High-volume chat	DeepSeek R1	Lower output list price ($2.5/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Qwen 3 Max	Lower TTFT (280 ms).
Long-document RAG	Qwen 3 Max	Larger window (262k).
Screenshots / vision	Qwen 3 Max	Qwen 3 Max is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

View all news

launchApr 18, 2026

Qwen 3 Max: Alibaba’s flagship for math and multilingual code

Closed flagship. Strong math. Compare to Sol and Opus on GPQA and SWE-bench, not on brand heat.

launchSep 20, 2025

Qwen3 235B: the open MoE Qwen, not the Max SKU

Sep 2025 open-weight mixture-of-experts. Self-host path. Don’t confuse it with Qwen 3 Max.

launchJan 20, 2025

DeepSeek R1 stays as the open-weights RL baseline

Jan 2025 reasoning model. Still searched. V4 Pro is the newer DeepSeek buy.

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LIVE

DeepSeek

DeepSeek R1

Elo 1,358

LiveBench59%

SWE-bench65.2%

Speed62 tok/s

Output cost$2.5/1M

Alibaba

Qwen 3 Max

Elo 1,518

LiveBench69.4%

SWE-bench67.8%

Speed80 tok/s

Output cost$3.9/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, DeepSeek R1 or Qwen 3 Max?: Qwen 3 Max has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,518). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.
Which is better at coding, DeepSeek R1 or Qwen 3 Max?: Qwen 3 Max leads SWE-bench at 67.8% vs 65.2%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.
Which is cheaper to run in production?: DeepSeek R1 output tokens are $2.5/1M versus $3.9/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, DeepSeek R1 or Qwen 3 Max?: Qwen 3 Max has the lower time-to-first-token (280 ms vs 420 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.
Which has the larger context window?: Qwen 3 Max accepts 262k tokens versus 64k.
Can I self-host either model?: DeepSeek R1 is marked open-weights in our catalog. The other side is a closed API. Check the provider license before you ship weights.
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. DeepSeek R1 and Qwen 3 Max Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All DeepSeek R1 matchups →|All Qwen 3 Max matchups →

DeepSeek R1 vs DeepSeek V3 (previous deepseek)DeepSeek R1 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro (next deepseek)Qwen 3 Max vs Qwen QwQ 32B (previous qwen)Qwen 3 Max vs Qwen3.8 27B (next qwen)DeepSeek V4 Flash vs Qwen 3 Max DeepSeek V4 Pro vs Qwen 3 Max

DeepSeek R1 vs Qwen 3 Max benchmark

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

DeepSeek R1 (2)vsQwen 3 Max (8)

DeepSeek R1: 2W (20%)Overall: Qwen 3 MaxQwen 3 Max: 8W (80%)

← DeepSeek R1Qwen 3 Max →

Qwen 3 Max (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

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

Preference Elo

1,358vs1,518

Coding Elo

—vs1,526

SWE-bench

65.2%vs67.8%

LiveBench

59%vs69.4%

GPQA Diamond

79.8%vs83.1%

DeepSeek R1: 0WQwen 3 Max: 5W

Qwen 3 Max (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

62 tok/svs80 tok/s

Time to first token

420 msvs280 ms

DeepSeek R1: 0WQwen 3 Max: 2W

DeepSeek R1 (2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$2.5/1Mvs$3.9/1M

Input price

$0.7/1Mvs$0.78/1M

Context window

64kvs262k

DeepSeek R1: 2WQwen 3 Max: 1W

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsQwen 3 Max

Higher SWE-bench (67.8%).

High-volume chatDeepSeek R1

Lower output list price ($2.5/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIQwen 3 Max

Lower TTFT (280 ms).

Long-document RAGQwen 3 Max

Larger window (262k).

Screenshots / visionQwen 3 Max

Qwen 3 Max is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Qwen 3 Max	Higher SWE-bench (67.8%).
High-volume chat	DeepSeek R1	Lower output list price ($2.5/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Qwen 3 Max	Lower TTFT (280 ms).
Long-document RAG	Qwen 3 Max	Larger window (262k).
Screenshots / vision	Qwen 3 Max	Qwen 3 Max is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, DeepSeek R1 or Qwen 3 Max?

Qwen 3 Max has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,518). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.

Which is better at coding, DeepSeek R1 or Qwen 3 Max?

Qwen 3 Max leads SWE-bench at 67.8% vs 65.2%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.

Which is cheaper to run in production?

DeepSeek R1 output tokens are $2.5/1M versus $3.9/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.

Which is faster, DeepSeek R1 or Qwen 3 Max?

Qwen 3 Max has the lower time-to-first-token (280 ms vs 420 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.

Which has the larger context window?

Qwen 3 Max accepts 262k tokens versus 64k.

Can I self-host either model?

DeepSeek R1 is marked open-weights in our catalog. The other side is a closed API. Check the provider license before you ship weights.

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. DeepSeek R1 and Qwen 3 Max Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Swap or Add Any Model to this Matchup

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Intelligence & Reasoning

Speed & Latency

Pricing & Capacity

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Qwen 3 Max

Qwen 3 Max

DeepSeek R1

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Qwen 3 Max: Alibaba’s flagship for math and multilingual code

Qwen3 235B: the open MoE Qwen, not the Max SKU

DeepSeek R1 stays as the open-weights RL baseline

Cast Your Matchup Vote

Community Discussions (0)

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CompareLLM Matrix

DeepSeek R1

Qwen 3 Max

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

Swap or Add Any Model to this Matchup

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Intelligence & Reasoning

Speed & Latency

Pricing & Capacity

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Qwen 3 Max

Qwen 3 Max

DeepSeek R1

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Qwen 3 Max: Alibaba’s flagship for math and multilingual code

Qwen3 235B: the open MoE Qwen, not the Max SKU

DeepSeek R1 stays as the open-weights RL baseline

Cast Your Matchup Vote

Community Discussions (0)

Share card

CompareLLM Matrix

DeepSeek R1

Qwen 3 Max

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons