Model comparison
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B vs MiniMax-M3
MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 26.1 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 3 shared benchmarks.
DeepSeek
MiniMaxSummary
- They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B scores higher in 0 categories and MiniMax-M3 in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M3 leads 58.4 to 16.0.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 33.6% for DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B and 90.9% for MiniMax-M3.
Side by side
| DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B | MiniMax-M3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | DeepSeek | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 26.1 | 43.8 |
| Released | 2025-01-20 | 2026-06-01 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | — | 1M |
| Max output | — | 512K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $1.20 |
| Results tracked | 5 | 41 |
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Category by category
Coding MiniMax-M3 leads
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B: 21.8 (#336), MiniMax-M3: 41.8 (#118)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierCode | — | 14.7% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1482 |
| SciCode | — | 47.1% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 7% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1469 |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 7.9% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 640.02 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B: —, MiniMax-M3: 22.6 (#130)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | — | 37.7% |
| OSWorld 2.0 | — | 4.6% |
| GBAEval | — | 0.9% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 2,158 |
Reasoning MiniMax-M3 leads
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B: 19.2 (#262), MiniMax-M3: 30.1 (#87)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 14% |
| SimpleBench | — | 45.8% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 65.1% |
| CritPt | — | 3.7% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1447 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 8% |
| DTBench | — | 78.9% |
| LMCA | — | 33.7% |
| Surface Evolver Bench | — | 55% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 146.95 |
| ForecastBench | — | 61.4 |
Math MiniMax-M3 leads
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B: 23.0 (#274), MiniMax-M3: 40.0 (#95)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 21.4% | 71.1% |
| ProofBench | — | 18% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1429 |
Knowledge MiniMax-M3 leads
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B: 16.0 (#290), MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#35)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 33.6% | 90.9% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1461 |
Multimodal Not comparable
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B: —, MiniMax-M3: 40.2 (#51)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1253 |
| LMArena Document | — | 1435 |
Multilingual Not comparable
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B: —, MiniMax-M3: 53.0 (#75)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1420 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1463 |
| LMArena French | — | 1447 |
| LMArena German | — | 1426 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1381 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1372 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1428 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1432 |
Instruction Following Not comparable
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B: —, MiniMax-M3: 75.5 (#62)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1433 |
Long Context Not comparable
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B: —, MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#72)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1445 |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B: —, MiniMax-M3: 62.1 (#83)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1433 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1404 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | — | 1150 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1442 |
Frequently asked questions
Is DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B better than MiniMax-M3?
MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 26.1 on the Noometry Index.
Is DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B or MiniMax-M3 better for coding?
MiniMax-M3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.8 versus 21.8 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B and MiniMax-M3 share?
3 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B has 5 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M3 has 41.