Model comparison

MiniMax M1 vs Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.0 to 40.3 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 17 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax M1

MiniMax

40.3

Rank #150 Confirmed

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

Alibaba (Qwen)

46.0

Rank #67 Confirmed

Summary

They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax M1 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads 53.3 to 36.4.
MiniMax M1 is cheaper at $0.55 / $2.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.60 / $3.60 for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B.
MiniMax M1 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.

Side by side

MiniMax M1 and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B specifications
	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
Provider	MiniMax	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	40.3	46.0
Released	2025-06-13	2026-02-01
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	1M	262K
Max output	40K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.55	$0.60
Output $ / M tokens	$2.20	$3.60
Results tracked	18	36

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

MiniMax M1: 39.9 (#153), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 42.0 (#114)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Coding	1359	1465
LMArena WebDev	—	1400

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

MiniMax M1: —, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 33.3 (#53)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
APEX-Agents	—	24.9%
τ²-bench Airline	—	81.5%
τ²-bench Banking	—	9.8%
τ²-bench Retail	—	84.4%
τ²-bench Telecom	—	97.8%

Reasoning Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

MiniMax M1: 26.9 (#126), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 34.5 (#70)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Hard Prompts	1339	1448
Kagi LLM Benchmark	—	73.7%
NYT Connections (extended)	—	58.9%
Chess Puzzles	—	13%
Thematic Generalization	—	65.1%
Mystery Game Puzzles	—	18%
DTBench	—	87.5%
LMCA	—	37.9%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	146.65

Math Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

MiniMax M1: 37.5 (#151), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 46.1 (#73)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Math	1361	1454
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	—	31.2%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	88.9%

Knowledge Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

MiniMax M1: 36.4 (#170), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 53.3 (#58)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Expert	1317	1462
GPQA Diamond	—	86.4%

Multimodal Not comparable

MiniMax M1: —, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 40.7 (#44)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Vision	—	1263

Multilingual Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

MiniMax M1: 45.8 (#163), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 53.7 (#59)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Non-English	1319	1430
LMArena Chinese	1360	1500
LMArena French	1370	1461
LMArena German	1350	1447
LMArena Japanese	1217	1426
LMArena Korean	1266	1384
LMArena Russian	1329	1429
LMArena Spanish	1353	1441

Instruction Following Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

MiniMax M1: 69.3 (#174), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 75.0 (#77)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Instruction Following	1312	1424

Long Context Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

MiniMax M1: 41.4 (#141), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 44.1 (#74)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Longer Query	1326	1442
Fiction.LiveBench	69.4%	—

Writing & Preference Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

MiniMax M1: 53.1 (#161), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 62.3 (#79)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
LMArena Text	1343	1438
LMArena Creative Writing	1298	1401
LMArena Multi-Turn	1335	1446
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	—	1478

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax M1 better than Qwen3.5 397B-A17B?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.0 to 40.3 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, MiniMax M1 or Qwen3.5 397B-A17B?

MiniMax M1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.55 per million input tokens and $2.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 397B-A17B lists at $0.60 and $3.60.

Is MiniMax M1 or Qwen3.5 397B-A17B better for coding?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.0 versus 39.9 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax M1 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax M1 and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax M1 has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B has 36.