      Tomasz Tunguz (Theory Ventures) · 2026-03-18
      · 78d
    

Speed vs. Intelligence in AI: Why Faster Models Win at Iterative Tasks

A venture capitalist conducted a side-by-side comparison of a local AI model (Qwen 35B) versus Claude Opus 4.5 on building a payment app. Despite Claude being 20% smarter and 50x larger, the faster local model completed the task in 2 minutes versus Claude's 6+ minutes, enabling more revision cycles within the same timeframe and achieving comparable output quality.

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Metrics in this report

Claude - Research Tempo Phase

55seconds

duration

Initial research and planning phase

Intelligence Advantage

20%

improvement

Opus 4.5 vs Qwen 35B on standard benchmarks

Local Model - Research Tempo Phase

20.9seconds

duration

Initial research and planning phase

Model Size Ratio

50x

larger

Claude Opus 4.5 compared to Qwen 35B

Output Quality Score - Claude

4.5/10

score

Payment app implementation by Claude Opus 4.5

Output Quality Score - Local Model

6.5/10

score

Payment app implementation by Qwen 35B

Speed Advantage

3x

faster

Local model response time advantage

Task Completion Time - Claude

6.4minutes

total

Building payment app on Tempo blockchain with Claude Opus 4.5

Task Completion Time - Local Model

2minutes

total

Building payment app on Tempo blockchain with Qwen 35B