Model comparison

MiniMax M1 vs Qwen3 8B

MiniMax M1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.3 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 3.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax M1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 11, 2026. 1 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax M1

MiniMax

40.3

Rank #150 Confirmed

Qwen3 8B

Alibaba (Qwen)

33.7

Rank #238 Confirmed

Summary

They share 1 benchmark with published results for both. MiniMax M1 scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3 8B in 0 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in reasoning, where MiniMax M1 leads 26.9 to 16.6.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is Fiction.LiveBench: 69.4% for MiniMax M1 and 62.1% for Qwen3 8B.
Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $0.55 / $2.20 for MiniMax M1.
MiniMax M1 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

MiniMax M1 and Qwen3 8B specifications
	MiniMax M1	Qwen3 8B
Provider	MiniMax	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	40.3	33.7
Released	2025-06-13	2025-04
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	1M	131K
Max output	40K	8K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.55	$0.18
Output $ / M tokens	$2.20	$0.70
Results tracked	18	11

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax M1 leads

MiniMax M1: 39.9 (#153), Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3 8B
SciCode	—	22.6%
LMArena Coding	1359	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

MiniMax M1: —, Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3 8B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	—	42.6%

Reasoning MiniMax M1 leads

MiniMax M1: 26.9 (#126), Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3 8B
CritPt	—	0%
Chess Puzzles	—	5%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1339	—
DTBench	—	59.7%
LMCA	—	8.8%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	136.17

Math MiniMax M1 leads

MiniMax M1: 37.5 (#151), Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3 8B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	56.1%
LMArena Math	1361	—

Knowledge Too close to call

MiniMax M1: 36.4 (#170), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3 8B
GPQA Diamond	—	56.8%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	4.8%
LMArena Expert	1317	—

Multilingual Not comparable

MiniMax M1: 45.8 (#163), Qwen3 8B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Non-English	1319	—
LMArena Chinese	1360	—
LMArena French	1370	—
LMArena German	1350	—
LMArena Japanese	1217	—
LMArena Korean	1266	—
LMArena Russian	1329	—
LMArena Spanish	1353	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

MiniMax M1: 69.3 (#174), Qwen3 8B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Instruction Following	1312	—

Long Context MiniMax M1 leads

MiniMax M1: 41.4 (#141), Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3 8B
Fiction.LiveBench	69.4%	62.1%
LMArena Longer Query	1326	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

MiniMax M1: 53.1 (#161), Qwen3 8B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax M1	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Text	1343	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1298	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1335	—

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax M1 better than Qwen3 8B?

Which is cheaper, MiniMax M1 or Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.18 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; MiniMax M1 lists at $0.55 and $2.20.

Is MiniMax M1 or Qwen3 8B better for coding?

MiniMax M1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.9 versus 34.0 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax M1 does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax M1 and Qwen3 8B share?

1 benchmark has published results for both models. MiniMax M1 has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.