Model comparison
MiniMax-M3 vs Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct
MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.
MiniMax
MicrosoftSummary
- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M3 scores higher in 8 categories and Phi 3 Small 8k 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 31.1.
Side by side
| MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 43.8 | 29.3 |
| 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 | 32 |
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Category by category
Coding MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 41.8 (#118), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.9 (#318)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1469 | 1101 |
| FrontierCode | 14.7% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1482 | — |
| SciCode | 47.1% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 20.3% |
| ALE-Bench | 640.02 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
MiniMax-M3: 22.6 (#130), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Small 8k 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 Small 8k Instruct: 14.8 (#323)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1447 | 1100 |
| SimpleBench | 45.8% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 65.1% | — |
| CritPt | 3.7% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 14% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 15.9% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 8% | — |
| DTBench | 78.9% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 30.3% |
| LMCA | 33.7% | — |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 55% | — |
| Adversarial NLI | — | 58.1% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 79.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.95 | — |
| ForecastBench | 61.4 | — |
| HellaSwag | — | 77% |
| LiveBench | — | 24% |
| WinoGrande | — | 81.5% |
Math MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 40.0 (#95), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.6 (#248)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1429 | 1151 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 71.1% | — |
| ProofBench | 18% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 17.6% |
Knowledge MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#35), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 29.1 (#240)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1461 | 1067 |
| GPQA Diamond | 90.9% | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 90.7% |
| MMLU | — | 75.7% |
| OpenBookQA | — | 88% |
| TriviaQA | — | 58.1% |
Multimodal Not comparable
MiniMax-M3: 40.2 (#51), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1253 | — |
| LMArena Document | 1435 | — |
Multilingual MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 53.0 (#75), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#272)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1420 | 1058 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1463 | 1061 |
| LMArena French | 1447 | 1135 |
| LMArena German | 1426 | 1080 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1381 | 966 |
| LMArena Korean | 1372 | 894 |
| LMArena Russian | 1428 | 1111 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1432 | 1111 |
Instruction Following MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 75.5 (#62), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 51.9 (#292)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1433 | 1087 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 47.2% |
Long Context MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#72), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#267)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1445 | 1088 |
Writing & Preference MiniMax-M3 leads
MiniMax-M3: 62.1 (#83), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.1 (#284)
| Benchmark | MiniMax-M3 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1433 | 1110 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1404 | 1083 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1442 | 1068 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1150 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 12.9% |
Frequently asked questions
Is MiniMax-M3 better than Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct?
MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.
Is MiniMax-M3 or Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better for coding?
MiniMax-M3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.8 versus 27.9 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M3 and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M3 has 41 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32.