Qwen vs Gemma

Hi! Been doing some local LLM stuff, and I can't help but notice: despite vastly-superior benchmark scores, Qwen 3.6 35a3B feels... substantially less intelligent than Gemma 4 26a4B (QAT). In terms of prompt adherence, output coherence, and just general "sanity", Gemma seems head-and-shoulders ahead. Arena.ai rankings generally agree: Gemma 4 26a4 ranks like 7 ELO points below Qwen 3.6 Plus, a larger proprietary model.

I'm running both at Q4, so maybe what I'm seeing is just the QAT... working? But, still, I'm a bit surprised by how big the gap feels.

Has anyone else seem similar? Is there some "trick" to get Qwen to... act smarter? Curious to hear what your experiences have been like.