Model comparison

MiniMax-M3 vs Qwen2.5 7B Instruct

MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 28.6 on the Noometry Index. Qwen2.5 7B Instruct costs 1.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 6 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M3

MiniMax

43.5

Rank #81 Confirmed

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct

Alibaba (Qwen)

28.6

Rank #314 Confirmed

Summary

They share 6 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M3 scores higher in 6 categories and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct in 1 category; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M3 leads 58.4 to 17.0.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 71.1% for MiniMax-M3 and 2.5% for Qwen2.5 7B Instruct.
Qwen2.5 7B Instruct is cheaper at $0.17 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M3.
MiniMax-M3 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

MiniMax-M3 and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct specifications
	MiniMax-M3	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
Provider	MiniMax	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	43.5	28.6
Released	2026-06-01	2024-09
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	1M	131K
Max output	512K	8K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$0.17
Output $ / M tokens	$1.20	$0.70
Results tracked	41	15

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 41.5 (#111), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 35.9 (#204)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
FrontierCode	14.7%	—
LMArena WebDev	1482	—
SciCode	47.1%	—
BigCodeBench Instruct	—	37.6%
LMArena Coding	1470	—
BigCodeBench Complete	—	46.1%
ALE-Bench	640.02	—

Agentic & Tool Use Qwen2.5 7B Instruct leads

MiniMax-M3: 22.5 (#121), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 23.5 (#117)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
APEX-Agents	37.7%	—
OSWorld 2.0	4.6%	—
BALROG	—	7.8%
GBAEval	0.9%	—
Vending-Bench 2	2,158	—

Reasoning MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 29.3 (#83), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 14.3 (#317)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
Chess Puzzles	14%	0%
DTBench	78.9%	47.7%
LMCA	33.7%	6.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index	147	118.44
SimpleBench	45.8%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	65.1%	—
CritPt	3.7%	—
LMArena Hard Prompts	1447	—
Mystery Game Puzzles	8%	—
Surface Evolver Bench	55%	—
ForecastBench	61.4	—

Math MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 39.1 (#83), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 11.8 (#300)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	71.1%	2.5%
ProofBench	18%	—
Omni-MATH	—	29.4%
LMArena Math	1432	—

Knowledge MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#32), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 17.0 (#281)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
GPQA Diamond	90.9%	35.5%
MMLU-Pro	—	53.9%
GPQA (HELM)	—	34.1%
LMArena Expert	1462	—
MMLU	—	72.9%

Multimodal Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 39.5 (#45), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: —

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
LMArena Vision	1254	—
LMArena Document	1435	—

Multilingual Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 53.2 (#70), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
LMArena Non-English	1420	—
LMArena Chinese	1465	—
LMArena French	1445	—
LMArena German	1424	—
LMArena Japanese	1381	—
LMArena Korean	1372	—
LMArena Russian	1430	—
LMArena Spanish	1431	—

Instruction Following MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 75.7 (#56), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 63.4 (#226)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
IFEval	—	74.1%
LMArena Instruction Following	1433	—

Long Context Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#68), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
LMArena Longer Query	1445	—

Writing & Preference MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 62.3 (#79), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 48.8 (#194)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
LMArena Text	1433	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1405	—
WildBench	—	73.1%
EQ-Bench 4	1150	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1441	—

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M3 better than Qwen2.5 7B Instruct?

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M3 or Qwen2.5 7B Instruct?

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct is cheaper. It lists at $0.17 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M3 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

Is MiniMax-M3 or Qwen2.5 7B Instruct better for coding?

MiniMax-M3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.5 versus 35.9 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M3 does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M3 and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct share?

6 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M3 has 41 scored results on Noometry and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct has 15.