Kimi K3 (thinking) vs Qwen3.8 Max
Should you write with Kimi K3 (thinking) or Qwen3.8 Max? On this page the only thing that changes is the model. Both wrote their own version of the scripts behind 10 of my What's AI videos, five drafts per script, and three judges from three model families scored every draft blind, with my finished script as the reference. Kimi K3 (thinking) leads overall, 87.2 to 83.2.
The verdict
This is one of those pairs where the better writer is also cheaper and faster. Kimi K3 (thinking) ranks #41 against Qwen3.8 Max at #68, more than four hundred Elo ahead, and the judges put it seven to eight points up on both continuity and voice. Qwen3.8 Max takes three metrics: Length Adherence by a wide margin, plus small edges on slop and visual cues. Meanwhile Kimi costs about $0.095 a script against $0.161 and finishes in about a minute where Qwen takes around seven. Kimi is also open weights. Qwen3.8 Max is only the pick when exact length matters more than voice and flow.
Pick Kimi K3 (thinking) for better-sounding scripts that cost less and arrive faster.
Pick Qwen3.8 Max when landing precisely on the target length is worth the extra cost and wait.
How to read these numbers
Overall vs Elo. Overall is the weighted rubric score. Elo compares each model's five-draft average with every other model's, script by script, and counts gaps inside run-to-run noise as draws, so it rewards winning often and can disagree with overall. My own scripts score 90.9 on the same rubric, not a literal 100. Right now 2 of 167 ranked configurations reach it. A model above that line writes at that level on this rubric. That's not the same as beating my script line for line.
Reading the Elo intervals. Each 95% range comes from resampling every model's recorded run scores on each task and re-ranking. Comparing these separate ranges does not test the Elo gap between two models: far apart is strong evidence, and overlap isn't a tie. The tasks stay fixed, so the ranges say nothing about new tasks (the long version).
Metric by metric: where the gap comes from
Blue is Kimi K3 (thinking), orange is Qwen3.8 Max, and the solid bar takes the metric. The weight under each name is how much it counts toward the overall. Weighted by how much each metric counts, Tone & Voice Match does the most to put Kimi K3 (thinking) ahead: it leads there by 7.1 points. If you care about one thing, say voice or length, go straight to that row.
Cost, speed, and consistency
Quality is half the decision. The other half is what each script costs you, how long you wait, and how often you get a bad draft. Kimi K3 (thinking) is ahead and it's also the cheaper one: Qwen3.8 Max costs about 1.7x as much per script.
| Kimi K3 (thinking) | Qwen3.8 Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall / 100 | 87.2 | 83.2 |
| Writing Elo | 2098 | 1682 |
| Score spread across drafts (± overall std) | 1.550 | 1.980 |
| Cost per script (USD) | 0.095 | 0.161 |
| Avg time per script (min) | 1.2 | 7.2 |
| Open weights | Yes | No |
Green wins the row, and for spread, cost and time, lower wins. Cost is one script at recorded list prices, uncached and without judging, so your real bill will differ. Spread is how much the overall score moves across a model's drafts, and time is the average time to get one accepted script, retries included.
Want the script-by-script detail? Full scorecards: Kimi K3 (thinking) · Qwen3.8 Max. The whole scoring pipeline is on the methodology page.
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