Model comparison

MiniMax-M3 vs Qwen3 8B

MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B 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 11, 2026. 8 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M3

MiniMax

43.8

Rank #85 Confirmed

Qwen3 8B

Alibaba (Qwen)

33.7

Rank #238 Confirmed

Summary

They share 8 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M3 scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3 8B in 1 category; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M3 leads 58.4 to 36.1.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 90.9% for MiniMax-M3 and 56.8% for Qwen3 8B.
Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 / $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 Qwen3 8B specifications
	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3 8B
Provider	MiniMax	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	43.8	33.7
Released	2026-06-01	2025-04
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	1M	131K
Max output	512K	8K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$0.18
Output $ / M tokens	$1.20	$0.70
Results tracked	41	11

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Category by category

Coding MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 41.8 (#118), Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3 8B
SciCode	47.1%	22.6%
FrontierCode	14.7%	—
LMArena WebDev	1482	—
LMArena Coding	1469	—
ALE-Bench	640.02	—

Agentic & Tool Use Qwen3 8B leads

MiniMax-M3: 22.6 (#130), Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3 8B
APEX-Agents	37.7%	—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	—	42.6%
OSWorld 2.0	4.6%	—
GBAEval	0.9%	—
Vending-Bench 2	2,158	—

Reasoning MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 30.1 (#87), Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3 8B
CritPt	3.7%	0%
Chess Puzzles	14%	5%
DTBench	78.9%	59.7%
LMCA	33.7%	8.8%
Epoch Capabilities Index	146.95	136.17
SimpleBench	45.8%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	65.1%	—
LMArena Hard Prompts	1447	—
Mystery Game Puzzles	8%	—
Surface Evolver Bench	55%	—
ForecastBench	61.4	—

Math MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 40.0 (#95), Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3 8B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	71.1%	56.1%
ProofBench	18%	—
LMArena Math	1429	—

Knowledge MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#35), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3 8B
GPQA Diamond	90.9%	56.8%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	4.8%
LMArena Expert	1461	—

Multimodal Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 40.2 (#51), Qwen3 8B: —

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Vision	1253	—
LMArena Document	1435	—

Multilingual Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 53.0 (#75), Qwen3 8B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Non-English	1420	—
LMArena Chinese	1463	—
LMArena French	1447	—
LMArena German	1426	—
LMArena Japanese	1381	—
LMArena Korean	1372	—
LMArena Russian	1428	—
LMArena Spanish	1432	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 75.5 (#62), Qwen3 8B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Instruction Following	1433	—

Long Context MiniMax-M3 leads

MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#72), Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3 8B
Fiction.LiveBench	—	62.1%
LMArena Longer Query	1445	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

MiniMax-M3: 62.1 (#83), Qwen3 8B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	MiniMax-M3	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Text	1433	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1404	—
EQ-Bench 4	1150	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1442	—

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M3 better than Qwen3 8B?

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M3 or Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.18 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M3 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

Is MiniMax-M3 or Qwen3 8B better for coding?

MiniMax-M3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.8 versus 34.0 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 Qwen3 8B share?

8 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M3 has 41 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.