Model comparison

Gemma 3 27B vs MiniMax-M3

MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 5.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 26 shared benchmarks.

Gemma 3 27B Google

30.5

Rank #277 Confirmed

MiniMax-M3 MiniMax

43.5

Rank #81 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 26 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 27B scores higher in 1 category and MiniMax-M3 in 9 categories; 10 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M3 leads 58.4 to 25.4.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 22.5% for Gemma 3 27B and 71.1% for MiniMax-M3.
  • Gemma 3 27B is cheaper at $0.08 / $0.16 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M3.
  • MiniMax-M3 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

Gemma 3 27B and MiniMax-M3 specifications
Gemma 3 27BMiniMax-M3
ProviderGoogleMiniMax
Noometry Index30.543.5
Released2025-03-112026-06-01
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window131K1M
Max output8K512K
Input $ / M tokens$0.08$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$0.16$1.20
Results tracked4341

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M3 leads

Gemma 3 27B: 22.1 (#329), MiniMax-M3: 41.5 (#111)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMiniMax-M3
SciCode21.2%47.1%
LMArena Coding13221470
FrontierCode—14.7%
Aider Polyglot4.9%—
LMArena WebDev—1482
LiveBench Coding39.9%—
ALE-Bench—640.02

Agentic & Tool Use Gemma 3 27B leads

Gemma 3 27B: 24.9 (#105), MiniMax-M3: 22.5 (#121)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMiniMax-M3
APEX-Agents—37.7%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard29.5%—
OSWorld 2.0—4.6%
GBAEval—0.9%
Vending-Bench 2—2,158

Reasoning MiniMax-M3 leads

Gemma 3 27B: 16.3 (#297), MiniMax-M3: 29.3 (#83)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMiniMax-M3
CritPt0%3.7%
Chess Puzzles0%14%
LMArena Hard Prompts13401447
DTBench52.5%78.9%
LMCA12.3%33.7%
Epoch Capabilities Index130.04147
SimpleBench—45.8%
Kagi LLM Benchmark40.4%—
NYT Connections (extended)—65.1%
LiveBench Reasoning43.8%—
Mystery Game Puzzles—8%
LiveBench Data Analysis51.5%—
Surface Evolver Bench—55%
ForecastBench—61.4
LiveBench50%—

Math MiniMax-M3 leads

Gemma 3 27B: 24.4 (#261), MiniMax-M3: 39.1 (#83)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMiniMax-M3
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202522.5%71.1%
LMArena Math13121432
ProofBench—18%
LiveBench Math55.4%—
MATH Level 574%—

Knowledge MiniMax-M3 leads

Gemma 3 27B: 25.4 (#256), MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#32)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMiniMax-M3
GPQA Diamond47.7%90.9%
LMArena Expert13031462
Confabulations40.3%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate7.4%—

Multimodal MiniMax-M3 leads

Gemma 3 27B: 32.0 (#94), MiniMax-M3: 39.5 (#45)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMiniMax-M3
LMArena Vision11651254
GeoBench52%—
LMArena Document—1435

Multilingual MiniMax-M3 leads

Gemma 3 27B: 47.0 (#150), MiniMax-M3: 53.2 (#70)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMiniMax-M3
LMArena Non-English13341420
LMArena Chinese13471465
LMArena French13681445
LMArena German13621424
LMArena Japanese12871381
LMArena Korean13081372
LMArena Russian13491430
LMArena Spanish13481431

Instruction Following MiniMax-M3 leads

Gemma 3 27B: 70.8 (#155), MiniMax-M3: 75.7 (#56)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMiniMax-M3
LMArena Instruction Following13211433
LiveBench Instruction Following74.9%—

Long Context MiniMax-M3 leads

Gemma 3 27B: 27.6 (#288), MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#68)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMiniMax-M3
LMArena Longer Query13331445
Fiction.LiveBench33.3%—

Writing & Preference MiniMax-M3 leads

Gemma 3 27B: 52.7 (#161), MiniMax-M3: 62.3 (#79)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMiniMax-M3
LMArena Text13581433
LMArena Creative Writing13461405
LMArena Multi-Turn13441441
Short-Story Creative Writing79.9%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1266—
EQ-Bench 4—1150
LiveBench Language34.6%—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemma 3 27B better than MiniMax-M3?

MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 5.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 27B or MiniMax-M3?

Gemma 3 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.08 per million input tokens and $0.16 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M3 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

Is Gemma 3 27B or MiniMax-M3 better for coding?

MiniMax-M3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.5 versus 22.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M3 does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 27B and MiniMax-M3 share?

26 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 27B has 43 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M3 has 41.

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