Seed OSS 36B Instruct vs Qwen3.8 27B

Qwen3.8 27B leads llmrun Score 121.5 to 102.5; both fit 24 GB at Q4_K_M; Qwen3.8 27B is 1.3× faster on RTX 4090 (~38 vs ~29 tok/s).

Model A · ByteDance-Seed

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

102.5llmrun Score

36.2B · 512K context · Apache 2.0 · Aug 2025

ChatFunctions

Model B · Alibaba

Qwen3.8 27B

121.5llmrun Score

27.8B · 256K context · Apache 2.0 · Aug 2026

VisionFunctions

Which should you choose?

Choose Seed OSS 36B Instruct if you want…

Longer context window
512K vs 256K tokens
Also does chat
Qwen3.8 27B doesn't list it

Choose Qwen3.8 27B if you want…

Higher llmrun Score
121.5 vs 102.5
Fits a 12 GB GPU
IQ3_XXS · 12 GB; Seed OSS 36B Instruct needs 12.4 GB at its smallest quant
1.3× faster on RTX 4090
~38 vs ~29 tok/s
Lighter on memory
17.4 vs 22.3 GB at Q4_K_M
Also does vision
Seed OSS 36B Instruct doesn't list it
Newer release
Aug 2026 vs Aug 2025

On your hardware

Each model at its default quant (Q4_K_M), a smaller one when it must. Estimates, ±20%.

MemorySeed OSS 36B InstructQwen3.8 27B

8 GB

RTX 4060 · 8 GB tier

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 12.4 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 8.8 GB

12 GB

RTX 3060 12GB · 12 GB tier

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 12.4 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

IQ3_XXS · ~20 tok/s

12 GB · up to 16Kfits

16 GB

RTX 5060 Ti 16GB · 16 GB tier

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

IQ2_M · ~23 tok/s

14.7 GB · up to 16K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q3_K_L · ~19 tok/s

15.4 GB · up to 16Kbetter quant

24 GBreference

RTX 4090 · 24 GB tier

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~29 tok/stight

24.1 GB · up to 8K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~38 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 64Kmore headroom

32 GB

RTX 5090 · 32 GB tier

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~52 tok/s

24.1 GB · up to 64K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~67 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kfaster

48 GB

RTX A6000 · 48 GB tier

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~22 tok/s

24.1 GB · up to 128K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~29 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kfaster

Mac 32 GB

Mac Mini M4 · Macs

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~4 tok/s

24.1 GB · up to 32K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~5 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 128Kfaster

Mac 64 GB

Mac Studio M4 Max · Macs

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~17 tok/s

24.1 GB · up to 256K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~22 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kfaster

Mac 128 GB

Mac Studio M4 Max · Macs

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~17 tok/s

24.1 GB · up to 512K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~22 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kfaster

Reference GPU: RTX 4090. Tinted cell = the better pick on that machine (fits, more headroom, or at least 10% faster).

llmrun Score

with its 90% range · bars share one scale

Seed OSS 36B Instruct Qwen3.8 27B

Overall

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

102.598–107

Qwen3.8 27B

121.5119–124

Coding

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

no data

Qwen3.8 27B

112.1105–119

Math

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

no data

Qwen3.8 27B

117.5111–125

Science

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

no data

Qwen3.8 27B

112.093–131

Reasoning

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

no data

Qwen3.8 27B

124.1121–127

Seed OSS 36B Instruct · #42 of 92 open models · #8 of 34 that fit 24 GB

Qwen3.8 27B · #10 of 92 open models · #1 of 34 that fit 24 GB

Benchmarks

The two models share no benchmark board.

18 more boards (other shared and single-model boards)

Only Seed OSS 36B Instruct (4)

Only Qwen3.8 27B (14)

VRAM by quantization

Memory to load the model and 2K context; below it, the total at 32K and 128K context. Lighter side in bold.

QuantSeed OSS 36B InstructQwen3.8 27B

Q2_K

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

15.9 GB13.6 GB file

32K 20.0 GB · 128K 32.8 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

12.6 GB10.8 GB file

32K 13.9 GB · 128K 19.3 GB

Q3_K_S

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

16.4 GB15.9 GB file

32K 20.4 GB · 128K 33.3 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

12.9 GB12.7 GB file

32K 14.2 GB · 128K 19.6 GB

Q3_K_M

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

18.2 GB17.6 GB file

32K 22.2 GB · 128K 35.1 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

14.3 GB13.4 GB file

32K 15.6 GB · 128K 21.0 GB

Q4_0

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

18.6 GB20.6 GB file

32K 22.7 GB · 128K 35.6 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

14.6 GB~13.9 GB file

32K 16.0 GB · 128K 21.4 GB

Q4_K_M

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

22.3 GB21.8 GB file

32K 26.3 GB · 128K 39.2 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

17.4 GB16.5 GB file

32K 18.8 GB · 128K 24.1 GB

Q5_K_M

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

26.3 GB25.6 GB file

32K 30.4 GB · 128K 43.2 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

20.5 GB19.8 GB file

32K 21.9 GB · 128K 27.3 GB

Q6_K

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

30.4 GB29.7 GB file

32K 34.4 GB · 128K 47.3 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

23.7 GB22.0 GB file

32K 25.0 GB · 128K 30.4 GB

Q8_0

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

36.7 GB38.4 GB file

32K 40.8 GB · 128K 53.6 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

28.5 GB29.0 GB file

32K 29.9 GB · 128K 35.2 GB

19 more quants

IQ2_XXS

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

10.5 GB10.2 GB file

32K 14.5 GB · 128K 27.4 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

8.4 GB7.3 GB file

32K 9.7 GB · 128K 15.1 GB

IQ2_XS

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

11.4 GB10.9 GB file

32K 15.4 GB · 128K 28.3 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

9.1 GB9.1 GB file

32K 10.4 GB · 128K 15.8 GB

IQ2_S

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

11.9 GB11.6 GB file

32K 15.9 GB · 128K 28.8 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

9.4 GB8.4 GB file

32K 10.8 GB · 128K 16.1 GB

IQ2_M

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

12.8 GB12.7 GB file

32K 16.8 GB · 128K 29.7 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

10.1 GB10.5 GB file

32K 11.5 GB · 128K 16.8 GB

IQ3_XXS

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

14.6 GB14.3 GB file

32K 18.6 GB · 128K 31.5 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

11.5 GB10.9 GB file

32K 12.9 GB · 128K 18.2 GB

Q2_K_S

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

15.0 GB12.6 GB file

32K 19.1 GB · 128K 31.9 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

not listed

IQ3_XS

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

15.5 GB15.1 GB file

32K 19.5 GB · 128K 32.4 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

12.2 GB10.4 GB file

32K 13.6 GB · 128K 18.9 GB

IQ3_S

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

15.9 GB15.9 GB file

32K 20.0 GB · 128K 32.8 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

12.6 GB12.0 GB file

32K 13.9 GB · 128K 19.3 GB

IQ3_M

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

16.8 GB16.5 GB file

32K 20.9 GB · 128K 33.8 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

13.3 GB14.9 GB file

32K 14.6 GB · 128K 20.0 GB

Q3_K_L

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

19.1 GB19.1 GB file

32K 23.1 GB · 128K 36.0 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

15.0 GB14.1 GB file

32K 16.3 GB · 128K 21.7 GB

IQ4_XS

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

20.0 GB19.5 GB file

32K 24.0 GB · 128K 36.9 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

15.7 GB14.3 GB file

32K 17.0 GB · 128K 22.4 GB

IQ4_NL

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

20.9 GB20.6 GB file

32K 24.9 GB · 128K 37.8 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

16.4 GB17.4 GB file

32K 17.7 GB · 128K 23.1 GB

Q4_1

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

20.9 GB22.8 GB file

32K 24.9 GB · 128K 37.8 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

16.4 GB17.5 GB file

32K 17.7 GB · 128K 23.1 GB

Q4_K_S

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

20.9 GB20.7 GB file

32K 24.9 GB · 128K 37.8 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

16.4 GB15.4 GB file

32K 17.7 GB · 128K 23.1 GB

Q4_K_L

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

22.7 GB22.4 GB file

32K 26.7 GB · 128K 39.6 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

17.8 GB18.8 GB file

32K 19.1 GB · 128K 24.5 GB

Q5_0

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

23.2 GB25.0 GB file

32K 27.2 GB · 128K 40.1 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

not listed

Q5_K_S

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

25.4 GB25.0 GB file

32K 29.5 GB · 128K 42.3 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

19.9 GB18.7 GB file

32K 21.2 GB · 128K 26.6 GB

Q5_K_L

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

26.8 GB26.1 GB file

32K 30.8 GB · 128K 43.7 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

20.9 GB21.5 GB file

32K 22.2 GB · 128K 27.6 GB

BF16

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

72.9 GB72.3 GB file

32K 76.9 GB · 128K 89.8 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

56.3 GB54.7 GB file

32K 57.7 GB · 128K 63.0 GB

How to run each

Seed OSS 36B Instruct

Ollama · Q4_K_M

$ollama run hf.co/unsloth/Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct-GGUF:Q4_K_M

All ways to run Seed OSS 36B Instruct →

Qwen3.8 27B

Ollama · Q4_K_M

$ollama run hf.co/unsloth/Qwen3.8-27B-GGUF:Q4_K_M

All ways to run Qwen3.8 27B →

Specifications

Specifications of Seed OSS 36B Instruct and Qwen3.8 27B
Spec	Seed OSS 36B Instruct	Qwen3.8 27B
Publisher	ByteDance-Seed	Alibaba
Parameters	36.2B	27.8B
Architecture	SeedOssForCausalLM	Qwen3_5ForConditionalGeneration
Context	512K tokens	256K tokens
Modalities	Chat, Function-calling	Vision, Function-calling
License	Apache 2.0	Apache 2.0
Released	Aug 2025	Aug 2026

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Seed OSS 36B Instruct or Qwen3.8 27B?

Qwen3.8 27B leads llmrun Score 121.5 to 102.5; both fit 24 GB at Q4_K_M; Qwen3.8 27B is 1.3× faster on RTX 4090 (~38 vs ~29 tok/s). Choose Seed OSS 36B Instruct for longer context window and also does chat; choose Qwen3.8 27B for higher llmrun Score and fits a 12 GB GPU.

Which needs less VRAM, Seed OSS 36B Instruct or Qwen3.8 27B?

At Q4_K_M, Seed OSS 36B Instruct requires 22.3 GB while Qwen3.8 27B needs 17.4 GB, making Qwen3.8 27B the easier model to run on your local setup.

Which is faster on RTX 4090?

Estimated decode speed on RTX 4090 is about 29 tok/s for Seed OSS 36B Instruct (Q4_K_M) and 38 tok/s for Qwen3.8 27B (Q4_K_M), so Qwen3.8 27B is faster. Estimates, ±20%.

Can I run Seed OSS 36B Instruct or Qwen3.8 27B on a 16 GB GPU?

Seed OSS 36B Instruct fits at IQ2_M; Qwen3.8 27B fits at Q3_K_L.

Which has a longer context window, Seed OSS 36B Instruct or Qwen3.8 27B?

Seed OSS 36B Instruct supports 524,288 tokens and Qwen3.8 27B supports 262,144 tokens.