Qwen3 32B vs Qwen3.8 27B

Qwen3.8 27B leads llmrun Score 121.5 to 98.4; both fit 24 GB at Q4_K_M.

Model A · Alibaba

Qwen3 32B

98.4llmrun Score

32.8B · 40K context · Apache 2.0 · Apr 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 Qwen3 32B 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 98.4
Stronger at reasoning
124.1 vs 91.0
Stronger at coding
112.1 vs 93.1
Ahead on the benchmarks
5 of 5 shared boards
Fits a 12 GB GPU
IQ3_XXS · 12 GB; Qwen3 32B needs 12 GB at its smallest quant
Longer context window
256K vs 40K tokens

On your hardware

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

MemoryQwen3 32BQwen3.8 27B

8 GB

RTX 4060 · 8 GB tier

Qwen3 32B

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 12 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 8.8 GB

12 GB

RTX 3060 12GB · 12 GB tier

Qwen3 32B

IQ2_XXS · ~24 tok/s

12 GB · up to 16K

Qwen3.8 27B

IQ3_XXS · ~20 tok/s

12 GB · up to 16Kbetter quant

16 GB

RTX 5060 Ti 16GB · 16 GB tier

Qwen3 32B

IQ3_XXS · ~22 tok/s

15.7 GB · up to 16K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q3_K_L · ~19 tok/s

15.4 GB · up to 16K

24 GBreference

RTX 4090 · 24 GB tier

Qwen3 32B

Q4_K_M · ~32 tok/s

22.6 GB · up to 16K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~38 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 64Kfaster

32 GB

RTX 5090 · 32 GB tier

Qwen3 32B

Q4_K_M · ~57 tok/s

22.6 GB · up to 40K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~67 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kfaster

48 GB

RTX A6000 · 48 GB tier

Qwen3 32B

Q4_K_M · ~25 tok/s

22.6 GB · up to 40K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~29 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kfaster

Mac 32 GB

Mac Mini M4 · Macs

Qwen3 32B

Q4_K_M · ~4 tok/s

22.6 GB · up to 40K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~5 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 128Kfaster

Mac 64 GB

Mac Studio M4 Max · Macs

Qwen3 32B

Q4_K_M · ~19 tok/s

22.6 GB · up to 40K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~22 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kfaster

Mac 128 GB

Mac Studio M4 Max · Macs

Qwen3 32B

Q4_K_M · ~19 tok/s

22.6 GB · up to 40K

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

Qwen3 32B Qwen3.8 27B

Overall

Qwen3 32B

98.496–101

Qwen3.8 27B

121.5119–124

Coding

Qwen3 32B

93.187–99

Qwen3.8 27B

112.1105–119

Math

Qwen3 32B

no data

Qwen3.8 27B

117.5111–125

Science

Qwen3 32B

96.089–103

Qwen3.8 27B

112.093–131

Reasoning

Qwen3 32B

91.083–99

Qwen3.8 27B

124.1121–127

Qwen3 32B · #52 of 92 open models · #11 of 34 that fit 24 GB

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

Benchmarks

5 shared boards: Qwen3 32B leads 0, Qwen3.8 27B leads 5 · Benchmarks imported Oct 2026

BoardQwen3 32BQwen3.8 27B

LMArena Text

Qwen3 32B

1346.9#78/186 open

ArenaLMArena · Oct 2026

Qwen3.8 27B

1438.1#22/186 open

ArenaLMArena · Oct 2026

SciCode

Qwen3 32B

35.4%#45/65 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Apr 2025

Qwen3.8 27B

46.6%#19/65 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Aug 2026

CritPt

Qwen3 32B

0.3%#42/65 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Apr 2025

Qwen3.8 27B

5.4%#15/65 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Aug 2026

DTBench

Qwen3 32B

67.5%#35/68 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Apr 2025

Qwen3.8 27B

88.0%#9/68 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Aug 2026

LMCA

Qwen3 32B

17.3%#37/54 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Apr 2025

Qwen3.8 27B

41.4%#7/54 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Aug 2026

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

Only Qwen3 32B (5)

Only Qwen3.8 27B (9)

VRAM by quantization

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

QuantQwen3 32BQwen3.8 27B

Q2_K

Qwen3 32B

14.6 GB12.3 GB file

32K 19.6 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

12.6 GB10.8 GB file

32K 13.9 GB · 128K 19.3 GB

Q3_K_S

Qwen3 32B

15.0 GB14.4 GB file

32K 20.0 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

12.9 GB12.7 GB file

32K 14.2 GB · 128K 19.6 GB

Q3_K_M

Qwen3 32B

16.6 GB16.0 GB file

32K 21.6 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

14.3 GB13.4 GB file

32K 15.6 GB · 128K 21.0 GB

Q4_0

Qwen3 32B

17.0 GB18.7 GB file

32K 22.1 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

14.6 GB~13.9 GB file

32K 16.0 GB · 128K 21.4 GB

Q4_K_M

Qwen3 32B

20.3 GB19.8 GB file

32K 25.3 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

17.4 GB16.5 GB file

32K 18.8 GB · 128K 24.1 GB

Q5_K_M

Qwen3 32B

24.0 GB23.2 GB file

32K 29.0 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

20.5 GB19.8 GB file

32K 21.9 GB · 128K 27.3 GB

Q6_K

Qwen3 32B

27.7 GB26.9 GB file

32K 32.7 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

23.7 GB22.0 GB file

32K 25.0 GB · 128K 30.4 GB

Q8_0

Qwen3 32B

33.4 GB34.8 GB file

32K 38.4 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

28.5 GB29.0 GB file

32K 29.9 GB · 128K 35.2 GB

18 more quants

IQ2_XXS

Qwen3 32B

9.7 GB9.3 GB file

32K 14.7 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

8.4 GB7.3 GB file

32K 9.7 GB · 128K 15.1 GB

IQ2_XS

Qwen3 32B

10.5 GB10.0 GB file

32K 15.5 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

9.1 GB9.1 GB file

32K 10.4 GB · 128K 15.8 GB

IQ2_S

Qwen3 32B

10.9 GB10.5 GB file

32K 15.9 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

9.4 GB8.4 GB file

32K 10.8 GB · 128K 16.1 GB

IQ2_M

Qwen3 32B

11.7 GB11.6 GB file

32K 16.7 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

10.1 GB10.5 GB file

32K 11.5 GB · 128K 16.8 GB

IQ3_XXS

Qwen3 32B

13.3 GB13.0 GB file

32K 18.4 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

11.5 GB10.9 GB file

32K 12.9 GB · 128K 18.2 GB

IQ3_XS

Qwen3 32B

14.2 GB13.7 GB file

32K 19.2 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

12.2 GB10.4 GB file

32K 13.6 GB · 128K 18.9 GB

IQ3_S

Qwen3 32B

not listed

Qwen3.8 27B

12.6 GB12.0 GB file

32K 13.9 GB · 128K 19.3 GB

IQ3_M

Qwen3 32B

15.4 GB14.9 GB file

32K 20.4 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

13.3 GB14.9 GB file

32K 14.6 GB · 128K 20.0 GB

Q3_K_L

Qwen3 32B

17.4 GB17.3 GB file

32K 22.5 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

15.0 GB14.1 GB file

32K 16.3 GB · 128K 21.7 GB

IQ4_XS

Qwen3 32B

18.3 GB17.7 GB file

32K 23.3 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

15.7 GB14.3 GB file

32K 17.0 GB · 128K 22.4 GB

IQ4_NL

Qwen3 32B

19.1 GB18.7 GB file

32K 24.1 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

16.4 GB17.4 GB file

32K 17.7 GB · 128K 23.1 GB

Q4_1

Qwen3 32B

19.1 GB20.6 GB file

32K 24.1 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

16.4 GB17.5 GB file

32K 17.7 GB · 128K 23.1 GB

Q4_K_S

Qwen3 32B

19.1 GB18.8 GB file

32K 24.1 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

16.4 GB15.4 GB file

32K 17.7 GB · 128K 23.1 GB

Q4_K_L

Qwen3 32B

20.7 GB20.3 GB file

32K 25.7 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

17.8 GB18.8 GB file

32K 19.1 GB · 128K 24.5 GB

Q5_0

Qwen3 32B

21.1 GB22.6 GB file

32K 26.1 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

not listed

Q5_K_S

Qwen3 32B

23.2 GB22.6 GB file

32K 28.2 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

19.9 GB18.7 GB file

32K 21.2 GB · 128K 26.6 GB

Q5_K_L

Qwen3 32B

24.4 GB23.7 GB file

32K 29.4 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

20.9 GB21.5 GB file

32K 22.2 GB · 128K 27.6 GB

BF16

Qwen3 32B

66.2 GB65.5 GB file

32K 71.2 GB · 128K —

Qwen3.8 27B

56.3 GB54.7 GB file

32K 57.7 GB · 128K 63.0 GB

How to run each

Qwen3 32B

Ollama · Q4_K_M

$ollama run hf.co/MaziyarPanahi/Qwen3-32B-GGUF:Q4_K_M

All ways to run Qwen3 32B →

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 Qwen3 32B and Qwen3.8 27B
Spec	Qwen3 32B	Qwen3.8 27B
Publisher	Alibaba	Alibaba
Parameters	32.8B	27.8B
Architecture	Qwen3ForCausalLM	Qwen3_5ForConditionalGeneration
Context	40K tokens	256K tokens
Modalities	Chat, Function-calling	Vision, Function-calling
License	Apache 2.0	Apache 2.0
Released	Apr 2025	Aug 2026

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Qwen3.8 27B leads llmrun Score 121.5 to 98.4; both fit 24 GB at Q4_K_M. Choose Qwen3 32B for also does chat; choose Qwen3.8 27B for higher llmrun Score and stronger at reasoning.

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

At Q4_K_M, Qwen3 32B requires 20.3 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 32 tok/s for Qwen3 32B (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 Qwen3 32B or Qwen3.8 27B on a 16 GB GPU?

Qwen3 32B fits at IQ3_XXS; Qwen3.8 27B fits at Q3_K_L.

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

Qwen3 32B supports 40,960 tokens and Qwen3.8 27B supports 262,144 tokens.