Model comparison

Gemma 3 27B vs MiniMax-M2

MiniMax-M2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.4 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 5.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 16 shared benchmarks.

Gemma 3 27B

Google

30.8

Rank #284 Confirmed

MiniMax-M2

MiniMax

37.4

Rank #204 Confirmed

Summary

They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 27B scores higher in 2 categories and MiniMax-M2 in 7 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in coding, where MiniMax-M2 leads 39.3 to 22.5.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 40.4% for Gemma 3 27B and 57.8% for MiniMax-M2.
Gemma 3 27B is cheaper at $0.08 / $0.16 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.
MiniMax-M2 accepts more context: 205K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

Gemma 3 27B and MiniMax-M2 specifications
	Gemma 3 27B	MiniMax-M2
Provider	Google	MiniMax
Noometry Index	30.8	37.4
Released	2025-03-11	2025-10-27
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	205K
Max output	8K	131K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.08	$0.30
Output $ / M tokens	$0.16	$1.20
Results tracked	43	21

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M2 leads

Gemma 3 27B: 22.5 (#334), MiniMax-M2: 39.3 (#159)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 27B	MiniMax-M2
LMArena Coding	1322	1370
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)	—	61%
Aider Polyglot	4.9%	—
LMArena WebDev	—	1297
SciCode	21.2%	—
LiveBench Coding	39.9%	—

Agentic & Tool Use Too close to call

Gemma 3 27B: 25.1 (#110), MiniMax-M2: 25.1 (#109)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 27B	MiniMax-M2
Terminal-Bench	—	30%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	29.5%	—
Vending-Bench 2	—	160.6

Reasoning MiniMax-M2 leads

Gemma 3 27B: 16.7 (#301), MiniMax-M2: 19.4 (#258)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 27B	MiniMax-M2
Kagi LLM Benchmark	40.4%	57.8%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1340	1357
NYT Connections (extended)	—	14.8%
CritPt	0%	—
Chess Puzzles	0%	—
LiveBench Reasoning	43.8%	—
DTBench	52.5%	—
LiveBench Data Analysis	51.5%	—
LMCA	12.3%	—
Epoch Capabilities Index	130.04	—
LiveBench	50%	—

Math MiniMax-M2 leads

Gemma 3 27B: 25.9 (#265), MiniMax-M2: 37.3 (#160)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 27B	MiniMax-M2
LMArena Math	1312	1352
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	22.5%	—
LiveBench Math	55.4%	—
MATH Level 5	74%	—

Knowledge MiniMax-M2 leads

Gemma 3 27B: 25.5 (#261), MiniMax-M2: 37.0 (#163)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 27B	MiniMax-M2
LMArena Expert	1304	1337
GPQA Diamond	47.7%	—
Confabulations	40.3%	—
Vectara Hallucination Rate	7.4%	—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemma 3 27B: 32.6 (#100), MiniMax-M2: —

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 27B	MiniMax-M2
LMArena Vision	1164	—
GeoBench	52%	—

Multilingual Gemma 3 27B leads

Gemma 3 27B: 46.9 (#155), MiniMax-M2: 45.3 (#171)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 27B	MiniMax-M2
LMArena Non-English	1334	1313
LMArena Chinese	1346	1366
LMArena French	1368	1335
LMArena German	1362	1355
LMArena Russian	1349	1331
LMArena Spanish	1349	1326
LMArena Japanese	1287	—
LMArena Korean	1308	—

Instruction Following Too close to call

Gemma 3 27B: 70.6 (#160), MiniMax-M2: 70.2 (#166)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 27B	MiniMax-M2
LMArena Instruction Following	1321	1328
LiveBench Instruction Following	74.9%	—

Long Context MiniMax-M2 leads

Gemma 3 27B: 27.6 (#293), MiniMax-M2: 40.5 (#153)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 27B	MiniMax-M2
LMArena Longer Query	1333	1331
Fiction.LiveBench	33.3%	—

Writing & Preference Too close to call

Gemma 3 27B: 52.5 (#168), MiniMax-M2: 53.0 (#162)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 27B	MiniMax-M2
LMArena Text	1358	1340
LMArena Creative Writing	1346	1286
LMArena Multi-Turn	1345	1361
Short-Story Creative Writing	79.9%	—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1266	—
LiveBench Language	34.6%	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemma 3 27B better than MiniMax-M2?

Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 27B or MiniMax-M2?

Gemma 3 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.08 per million input tokens and $0.16 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

Is Gemma 3 27B or MiniMax-M2 better for coding?

MiniMax-M2 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.3 versus 22.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M2 does, with 205K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 27B and MiniMax-M2 share?

16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 27B has 43 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2 has 21.