Model comparison
MiniMax-M3 vs Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 27.9 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 18 shared benchmarks.
MiniMax
MicrosoftSummary
- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M3 scores higher in 8 categories and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where MiniMax-M3 leads 62.1 to 27.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Chess Puzzles: 14% for MiniMax-M3 and 0% for Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct.
Side by side
| MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 43.8 | 27.9 |
| Released | 2026-06-01 | 2024-04-23 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 1M | — |
| Max output | 512K | — |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.30 | — |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.20 | — |
| Results tracked | 41 | 35 |
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Category by category
Coding MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 41.8 (#118), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.6 (#323)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1469 | 1093 |
| FrontierCode | 14.7% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1482 | — |
| SciCode | 47.1% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 15.5% |
| ALE-Bench | 640.02 | — |
| HumanEval+ | — | 59.1% |
| MBPP+ | — | 54.2% |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
MiniMax-M3: 22.6 (#130), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 37.7% | — |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 4.6% | — |
| GBAEval | 0.9% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 2,158 | — |
Reasoning MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 30.1 (#87), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 14.1 (#328)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 14% | 0% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1447 | 1072 |
| SimpleBench | 45.8% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 65.1% | — |
| CritPt | 3.7% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 26.8% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 8% | — |
| DTBench | 78.9% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 34.7% |
| LMCA | 33.7% | — |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 55% | — |
| Adversarial NLI | — | 52.8% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 71.7% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.95 | — |
| ForecastBench | 61.4 | — |
| HellaSwag | — | 76.7% |
| LiveBench | — | 22.4% |
| WinoGrande | — | 70.8% |
Math MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 40.0 (#95), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.6 (#257)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1429 | 1111 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 71.1% | — |
| ProofBench | 18% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 15.7% |
Knowledge MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#35), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 28.5 (#246)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1461 | 1045 |
| GPQA Diamond | 90.9% | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 84.9% |
| MMLU | — | 68.8% |
| OpenBookQA | — | 88% |
| TriviaQA | — | 64% |
Multimodal Not comparable
MiniMax-M3: 40.2 (#51), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1253 | — |
| LMArena Document | 1435 | — |
Multilingual MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 53.0 (#75), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.3 (#280)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1420 | 1021 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1463 | 1021 |
| LMArena French | 1447 | 1076 |
| LMArena German | 1426 | 1044 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1381 | 935 |
| LMArena Korean | 1372 | 905 |
| LMArena Russian | 1428 | 1022 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1432 | 1085 |
Instruction Following MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 75.5 (#62), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 47.7 (#303)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1433 | 1053 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 39.1% |
Long Context MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#72), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 31.7 (#276)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1445 | 1044 |
Writing & Preference MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 62.1 (#83), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 27.6 (#300)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1433 | 1073 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1404 | 1037 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1442 | 1018 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1150 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 9.2% |
Frequently asked questions
Is MiniMax-M3 better than Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct?
MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 27.9 on the Noometry Index.
Is MiniMax-M3 or Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct better for coding?
MiniMax-M3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.8 versus 26.6 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M3 and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct share?
18 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M3 has 41 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct has 35.