Model comparison

MiniMax-M2.5 vs Qwen3.8 27B

Qwen3.8 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.0 to 38.3 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.5 costs 2.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.8 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 24 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M2.5

MiniMax

38.3

Rank #188 Confirmed

Qwen3.8 27B

Alibaba (Qwen)

46.0

Rank #68 Confirmed

Summary

They share 24 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.8 27B in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen3.8 27B leads 41.0 to 17.5.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is NYT Connections (extended): 16.8% for MiniMax-M2.5 and 54.5% for Qwen3.8 27B.
MiniMax-M2.5 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.99 / $1.49 for Qwen3.8 27B.
Qwen3.8 27B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 205K.

Side by side

MiniMax-M2.5 and Qwen3.8 27B specifications
	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.8 27B
Provider	MiniMax	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	38.3	46.0
Released	2026-02-12	2026-08-14
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	205K	262K
Max output	131K	33K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$0.99
Output $ / M tokens	$1.20	$1.49
Results tracked	33	31

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.8 27B leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 48.1 (#58), Qwen3.8 27B: 50.5 (#44)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.8 27B
LMArena WebDev	1387	1593
LMArena Coding	1381	1482
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)	75.8%	—
SWE-bench Multilingual	68.3%	—
SciCode	—	46.6%
ALE-Bench	618.17	—

Agentic & Tool Use Qwen3.8 27B leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 30.4 (#77), Qwen3.8 27B: 32.9 (#57)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.8 27B
Terminal-Bench	42.7%	—
APEX-Agents	—	47.5%
Vending-Bench 2	-23.16	—

Reasoning Qwen3.8 27B leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 17.5 (#292), Qwen3.8 27B: 41.0 (#54)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.8 27B
ARC-AGI-2	4.9%	42.4%
NYT Connections (extended)	16.8%	54.5%
ARC-AGI-1	63.7%	87.5%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1372	1460
Epoch Capabilities Index	146.68	149.38
Kagi LLM Benchmark	55.2%	—
CritPt	—	5.4%
DTBench	—	88%
LMCA	—	41.4%
Surface Evolver Bench	—	45%

Math Qwen3.8 27B leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 26.9 (#253), Qwen3.8 27B: 37.1 (#161)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.8 27B
ProofBench	4%	16%
LMArena Math	1378	1456

Knowledge Qwen3.8 27B leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 39.2 (#135), Qwen3.8 27B: 41.6 (#109)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.8 27B
LMArena Expert	1379	1482
Vectara Hallucination Rate	9.1%	—

Multimodal Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.5: —, Qwen3.8 27B: 41.3 (#37)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.8 27B
LMArena Vision	—	1271

Multilingual Qwen3.8 27B leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 47.1 (#152), Qwen3.8 27B: 53.7 (#60)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.8 27B
LMArena Non-English	1338	1430
LMArena Chinese	1393	1504
LMArena French	1362	1465
LMArena German	1362	1438
LMArena Japanese	1171	1384
LMArena Korean	1232	1393
LMArena Russian	1358	1415
LMArena Spanish	1354	1448

Instruction Following Qwen3.8 27B leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 71.5 (#148), Qwen3.8 27B: 75.8 (#53)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.8 27B
LMArena Instruction Following	1353	1439

Long Context Qwen3.8 27B leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 37.5 (#216), Qwen3.8 27B: 44.3 (#70)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.8 27B
LMArena Longer Query	1366	1450
CL-bench	11.4%	—
CL-bench Life	6.3%	—

Writing & Preference Qwen3.8 27B leads

MiniMax-M2.5: 53.9 (#153), Qwen3.8 27B: 65.8 (#43)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M2.5	Qwen3.8 27B
LMArena Text	1359	1441
LMArena Creative Writing	1331	1384
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1361	1671
LMArena Multi-Turn	1364	1441

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M2.5 better than Qwen3.8 27B?

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.5 or Qwen3.8 27B?

MiniMax-M2.5 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.8 27B lists at $0.99 and $1.49.

Is MiniMax-M2.5 or Qwen3.8 27B better for coding?

Qwen3.8 27B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.5 versus 48.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.8 27B does, with 262K tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.5 and Qwen3.8 27B share?

24 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.5 has 33 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.8 27B has 31.