Qwen2.5 32B Instruct vs Qwen3.8 27B

Qwen3.8 27B leads llmrun Score 121.5 to 80.4; both fit 24 GB at Q4_K_M.

Model A · Alibaba

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

80.4llmrun Score

32.8B · 32K context · Apache 2.0 · Sep 2024

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 Qwen2.5 32B Instruct if you want…

Also does chat
Qwen3.8 27B doesn't list it

Choose Qwen3.8 27B if you want…

Higher llmrun Score
121.5 vs 80.4
Fits a 12 GB GPU
IQ3_XXS · 12 GB; Qwen2.5 32B Instruct needs 13.6 GB at its smallest quant
Lighter on memory
17.4 vs 20.5 GB at Q4_K_M
Longer context window
256K vs 32K tokens
Also does vision
Qwen2.5 32B Instruct doesn't list it
Newer release
Aug 2026 vs Sep 2024

On your hardware

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

MemoryQwen2.5 32B InstructQwen3.8 27B

8 GB

RTX 4060 · 8 GB tier

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 13.6 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 8.8 GB

12 GB

RTX 3060 12GB · 12 GB tier

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 13.6 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

IQ3_XXS · ~20 tok/s

12 GB · up to 16Kfits

16 GB

RTX 5060 Ti 16GB · 16 GB tier

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

IQ2_M · ~25 tok/s

15.7 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

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~32 tok/stight

24.3 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

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~57 tok/s

24.3 GB · up to 32K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~67 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kfaster

48 GB

RTX A6000 · 48 GB tier

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~24 tok/s

24.3 GB · up to 32K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~29 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kfaster

Mac 32 GB

Mac Mini M4 · Macs

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~4 tok/s

24.3 GB · up to 16K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~5 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 128Kfaster

Mac 64 GB

Mac Studio M4 Max · Macs

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~19 tok/s

24.3 GB · up to 32K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~22 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kfaster

Mac 128 GB

Mac Studio M4 Max · Macs

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~19 tok/s

24.3 GB · up to 32K

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

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct Qwen3.8 27B

Overall

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

80.475–86

Qwen3.8 27B

121.5119–124

Coding

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

no data

Qwen3.8 27B

112.1105–119

Math

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

no data

Qwen3.8 27B

117.5111–125

Science

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

no data

Qwen3.8 27B

112.093–131

Reasoning

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

no data

Qwen3.8 27B

124.1121–127

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct · #76 of 92 open models · #23 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.

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

Only Qwen2.5 32B Instruct (5)

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.

QuantQwen2.5 32B InstructQwen3.8 27B

Q2_K

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

14.8 GB12.3 GB file

32K 22.8 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

12.6 GB10.8 GB file

32K 13.9 GB · 128K 19.3 GB

Q3_K_S

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

15.2 GB14.4 GB file

32K 23.2 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

12.9 GB12.7 GB file

32K 14.2 GB · 128K 19.6 GB

Q3_K_M

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

16.8 GB15.9 GB file

32K 24.9 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

14.3 GB13.4 GB file

32K 15.6 GB · 128K 21.0 GB

Q4_0

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

17.2 GB18.6 GB file

32K 25.3 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

14.6 GB~13.9 GB file

32K 16.0 GB · 128K 21.4 GB

Q4_K_M

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

20.5 GB19.9 GB file

32K 28.6 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

17.4 GB16.5 GB file

32K 18.8 GB · 128K 24.1 GB

Q5_K_M

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

24.2 GB23.3 GB file

32K 32.2 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

20.5 GB19.8 GB file

32K 21.9 GB · 128K 27.3 GB

Q6_K

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

27.9 GB26.9 GB file

32K 35.9 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

23.7 GB22.0 GB file

32K 25.0 GB · 128K 30.4 GB

Q8_0

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

33.6 GB34.8 GB file

32K 41.7 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

28.5 GB29.0 GB file

32K 29.9 GB · 128K 35.2 GB

19 more quants

IQ2_XXS

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

9.9 GB9.0 GB file

32K 17.9 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

8.4 GB7.3 GB file

32K 9.7 GB · 128K 15.1 GB

IQ2_XS

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

10.7 GB10.0 GB file

32K 18.7 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

9.1 GB9.1 GB file

32K 10.4 GB · 128K 15.8 GB

IQ2_S

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

11.1 GB10.4 GB file

32K 19.1 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

9.4 GB8.4 GB file

32K 10.8 GB · 128K 16.1 GB

IQ2_M

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

11.9 GB11.3 GB file

32K 19.9 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

10.1 GB10.5 GB file

32K 11.5 GB · 128K 16.8 GB

IQ3_XXS

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

13.5 GB12.8 GB file

32K 21.6 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

11.5 GB10.9 GB file

32K 12.9 GB · 128K 18.2 GB

Q2_K_S

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

13.9 GB11.5 GB file

32K 22.0 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

not listed

IQ3_XS

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

14.4 GB13.7 GB file

32K 22.4 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

12.2 GB10.4 GB file

32K 13.6 GB · 128K 18.9 GB

IQ3_S

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

14.8 GB14.4 GB file

32K 22.8 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

12.6 GB12.0 GB file

32K 13.9 GB · 128K 19.3 GB

IQ3_M

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

15.6 GB14.8 GB file

32K 23.6 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

13.3 GB14.9 GB file

32K 14.6 GB · 128K 20.0 GB

Q3_K_L

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

17.6 GB17.2 GB file

32K 25.7 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

15.0 GB14.1 GB file

32K 16.3 GB · 128K 21.7 GB

IQ4_XS

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

18.5 GB17.7 GB file

32K 26.5 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

15.7 GB14.3 GB file

32K 17.0 GB · 128K 22.4 GB

IQ4_NL

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

not listed

Qwen3.8 27B

16.4 GB17.4 GB file

32K 17.7 GB · 128K 23.1 GB

Q4_1

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

19.3 GB20.6 GB file

32K 27.3 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

16.4 GB17.5 GB file

32K 17.7 GB · 128K 23.1 GB

Q4_K_S

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

19.3 GB18.8 GB file

32K 27.3 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

16.4 GB15.4 GB file

32K 17.7 GB · 128K 23.1 GB

Q4_K_L

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

20.9 GB20.4 GB file

32K 29.0 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

17.8 GB18.8 GB file

32K 19.1 GB · 128K 24.5 GB

Q5_0

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

21.3 GB22.6 GB file

32K 29.4 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

not listed

Q5_K_S

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

23.4 GB22.6 GB file

32K 31.4 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

19.9 GB18.7 GB file

32K 21.2 GB · 128K 26.6 GB

Q5_K_L

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

24.6 GB23.7 GB file

32K 32.6 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

20.9 GB21.5 GB file

32K 22.2 GB · 128K 27.6 GB

BF16

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

66.4 GB~65.5 GB file

32K 74.4 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

56.3 GB54.7 GB file

32K 57.7 GB · 128K 63.0 GB

How to run each

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

Ollama · Q4_K_M

$ollama run hf.co/bartowski/Qwen2.5-32B-Instruct-GGUF:Q4_K_M

All ways to run Qwen2.5 32B 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 Qwen2.5 32B Instruct and Qwen3.8 27B
Spec	Qwen2.5 32B Instruct	Qwen3.8 27B
Publisher	Alibaba	Alibaba
Parameters	32.8B	27.8B
Architecture	Qwen2ForCausalLM	Qwen3_5ForConditionalGeneration
Context	32K tokens	256K tokens
Modalities	Chat, Function-calling	Vision, Function-calling
License	Apache 2.0	Apache 2.0
Released	Sep 2024	Aug 2026

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Qwen2.5 32B Instruct or Qwen3.8 27B?

Qwen3.8 27B leads llmrun Score 121.5 to 80.4; both fit 24 GB at Q4_K_M. Choose Qwen2.5 32B Instruct for also does chat; choose Qwen3.8 27B for higher llmrun Score and fits a 12 GB GPU.

Which needs less VRAM, Qwen2.5 32B Instruct or Qwen3.8 27B?

At Q4_K_M, Qwen2.5 32B Instruct requires 20.5 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 32 tok/s for Qwen2.5 32B 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 Qwen2.5 32B Instruct or Qwen3.8 27B on a 16 GB GPU?

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct fits at IQ2_M; Qwen3.8 27B fits at Q3_K_L.

Which has a longer context window, Qwen2.5 32B Instruct or Qwen3.8 27B?

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct supports 32,768 tokens and Qwen3.8 27B supports 262,144 tokens.