Untuned Qwen3.6-27B outperforms tuned Nemotron Puzzle-75B in agentic tasks

An evaluation of agentic capabilities shows that the untuned Qwen3.6-27B model successfully completed all tested tasks using 6-9 tool calls, whereas the tuned Nemotron Puzzle-75B required hand-tuned prompts and significantly more turns to pass.

• The Qwen3.6-27B (INT8-AutoRound) passed every agentic task with 134-190s per task using a neutral system prompt.
• The Nemotron Puzzle-75B (NVFP4) was unreliable without manual tuning, requiring 13-23 calls and 221-384s to pass.
• The author notes that fewer turns are more critical for agent performance than raw token decode speed.
• Prefix caching issues were identified as a potential cause for initial failures with identical payloads.

The results suggest that for agentic workflows, efficiency in tool usage outweighs the advantages of larger model size or higher throughput.