Noometry

Model comparison

GPT-5 Mini vs Qwen3 Max

Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 41.8 on the Noometry Index. GPT-5 Mini costs 3.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 31 shared benchmarks.

GPT-5 Mini OpenAI

41.8

Rank #128 Confirmed

Qwen3 Max Alibaba (Qwen)

43.7

Rank #87 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 31 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5 Mini scores higher in 4 categories and Qwen3 Max in 4 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where GPT-5 Mini leads 46.7 to 38.7.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3): 46.7% for GPT-5 Mini and 18.9% for Qwen3 Max.
  • GPT-5 Mini is cheaper at $0.25 / $2 per million input/output tokens, against $1.20 / $6 for Qwen3 Max.
  • GPT-5 Mini accepts more context: 400K tokens versus 262K.

Side by side

GPT-5 MiniQwen3 Max
ProviderOpenAIAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index41.843.7
Released2025-08-072025-09-23
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window400K262K
Max output128K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.25$1.20
Output $ / M tokens$2$6
Results tracked6033

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3 Max leads

GPT-5 Mini: 40.1 (#146), Qwen3 Max: 43.0 (#93)

BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniQwen3 Max
LMArena Coding14061456
ALE-Bench799.77370.45
SWE-bench Verified64.7%—
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)59.8%—
SWE-bench Multilingual39.7%—
SciCode39.2%—
WeirdML52.7%—
AlgoTune1.38—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

GPT-5 Mini: 31.1 (#70), Qwen3 Max: —

BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniQwen3 Max
Vending-Bench 2-31.1871.56
Terminal-Bench34.8%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard55.5%—

Reasoning GPT-5 Mini leads

GPT-5 Mini: 23.9 (#168), Qwen3 Max: 22.6 (#190)

BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniQwen3 Max
Kagi LLM Benchmark70.3%72.5%
Chess Puzzles30%4%
LMArena Hard Prompts13801448
Mystery Game Puzzles10%5%
DTBench80.5%82.1%
LMCA34.2%28.3%
Epoch Capabilities Index145.52142.38
ARC-AGI-24.4%—
NYT Connections (extended)—30.1%
ARC-AGI-154.3%—
CritPt0%—
EnigmaEval8.2%—
ForecastBench61—

Math GPT-5 Mini leads

GPT-5 Mini: 46.7 (#69), Qwen3 Max: 38.7 (#131)

BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniQwen3 Max
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)46.7%18.9%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202586.7%73.3%
LMArena Math13781446
MATH Level 597.8%97.1%
FrontierMath Tier 412.2%—
ProofBench9%—
Omni-MATH72.2%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)27.2%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)6.3%—

Knowledge Qwen3 Max leads

GPT-5 Mini: 45.6 (#86), Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#78)

BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniQwen3 Max
GPQA Diamond75%72.6%
SimpleQA Verified21.6%48.7%
LMArena Expert13791455
Humanity's Last Exam19.4%—
MMLU-Pro83.5%—
Confabulations13.3%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate12.9%—
GPQA (HELM)75.6%—

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-5 Mini: 35.6 (#85), Qwen3 Max: —

BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniQwen3 Max
LMArena Vision1202—
VPCT40.2%—

Multilingual Qwen3 Max leads

GPT-5 Mini: 48.9 (#137), Qwen3 Max: 53.7 (#62)

BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniQwen3 Max
LMArena Non-English13631429
LMArena Chinese13851478
LMArena French13861449
LMArena German13661463
LMArena Japanese13411397
LMArena Korean13081399
LMArena Russian13621428
LMArena Spanish13551462

Instruction Following GPT-5 Mini leads

GPT-5 Mini: 76.2 (#46), Qwen3 Max: 74.8 (#87)

BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniQwen3 Max
LMArena Instruction Following13571419
IFEval92.7%—

Long Context Too close to call

GPT-5 Mini: 41.9 (#132), Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#134)

BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniQwen3 Max
Fiction.LiveBench69.4%66.7%
LMArena Longer Query13551438
CL-bench—14.5%

Writing & Preference Qwen3 Max leads

GPT-5 Mini: 55.2 (#148), Qwen3 Max: 62.4 (#76)

BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniQwen3 Max
LMArena Text13731439
LMArena Creative Writing13251402
LMArena Multi-Turn13631446
Short-Story Creative Writing83.1%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1313—
WildBench85.5%—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-5 Mini better than Qwen3 Max?

Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 41.8 on the Noometry Index. GPT-5 Mini costs 3.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, GPT-5 Mini or Qwen3 Max?

GPT-5 Mini is cheaper. It lists at $0.25 per million input tokens and $2 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Max lists at $1.20 and $6.

Is GPT-5 Mini or Qwen3 Max better for coding?

Qwen3 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.0 versus 40.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-5 Mini does, with 400K tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do GPT-5 Mini and Qwen3 Max share?

31 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5 Mini has 60 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.

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