Each has it's pros and cons. Dense models of equivalent total size obviously do run slower if all else is equal, however, the fact is that 35A3B is absolutely not 'a lot smarter'... in fact, if you set aside the slower inference rates, Qwen3.5 27B is arguably more intelligent and reliable. I use both regularly on a Strix Halo system... the Just see the comparison table here: https://huggingface.co/unsloth/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-GGUF . The problem that you have to acknowledge if running locally (especially for coding tasks) is that your primary bottleneck quickly becomes prompt processing (NOT token generation) and here the differences between dense and MOE are variable and usually negligible.