Model comparison

o3-mini vs Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 31.9 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 26 shared benchmarks.

o3-mini OpenAI

36.7

Rank #212 Confirmed

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct Alibaba (Qwen)

31.9

Rank #267 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 26 benchmarks with published results for both. o3-mini scores higher in 7 categories and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct in 2 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where o3-mini leads 38.3 to 27.0.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 76.9% for o3-mini and 8.1% for Qwen2.5 72B Instruct.
  • o3-mini is cheaper at $1.10 / $4.40 per million input/output tokens, against $1.40 / $5.60 for Qwen2.5 72B Instruct.
  • o3-mini accepts more context: 200K tokens versus 131K.
  • Qwen2.5 72B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

o3-mini and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct specifications
o3-miniQwen2.5 72B Instruct
ProviderOpenAIAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index36.731.9
Released2024-12-202024-09
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window200K131K
Max output100K8K
Input $ / M tokens$1.10$1.40
Output $ / M tokens$4.40$5.60
Results tracked5143

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Category by category

Coding o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 40.8 (#132), Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 33.2 (#260)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 72B Instruct
WeirdML43.7%16%
LMArena Coding13781292
Aider Polyglot60.4%—
SciCode39.8%—
GSO1.3%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—45.8%
LiveBench Coding82.7%—
BigCodeBench Complete—55.9%
CadEval54%—

Agentic & Tool Use o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 29.6 (#84), Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 22.1 (#133)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 72B Instruct
TheAgentCompany—5.7%
Cybench22.5%—
BALROG—16.2%
METR Time Horizons—35.8%

Reasoning Qwen2.5 72B Instruct leads

o3-mini: 16.3 (#305), Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 22.3 (#199)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 72B Instruct
LMArena Hard Prompts13661271
DTBench68.8%62.9%
LMCA19%13.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index140.34129
ForecastBench59.657.5
ARC-AGI-23%—
SimpleBench22.8%—
ARC-AGI-134.5%—
CritPt0.3%—
Chess Puzzles17%—
LiveBench Reasoning89.6%—
Mystery Game Puzzles7%—
LiveBench Data Analysis70.6%—
BIG-Bench Hard—79.8%
HellaSwag—84.8%
LiveBench75.9%—
PIQA—82.6%
WinoGrande—82.3%

Math o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 28.1 (#244), Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 19.3 (#287)

Math benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 72B Instruct
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202576.9%8.1%
LMArena Math13961283
MATH Level 596.5%63.2%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)18.6%—
FrontierMath Tier 40%—
Omni-MATH—33%
LiveBench Math77.3%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)12.4%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)4.2%—

Knowledge o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 38.3 (#146), Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 27.0 (#253)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 72B Instruct
GPQA Diamond77%49.1%
Confabulations17.9%19.1%
LMArena Expert13641245
SimpleQA Verified15.3%—
MMLU-Pro—63.1%
GPQA (HELM)—42.6%
ARC (AI2) Challenge—94.5%
MMLU—85.3%
TriviaQA—71.9%

Multilingual o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 45.7 (#164), Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 41.0 (#213)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 72B Instruct
LMArena Non-English13191252
LMArena Chinese13791272
LMArena French13341280
LMArena German13031234
LMArena Japanese12861180
LMArena Korean13141188
LMArena Russian13041264
LMArena Spanish13211256

Instruction Following o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 75.1 (#72), Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 65.5 (#221)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 72B Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following13371254
LiveBench Instruction Following84.4%—
IFEval—80.6%

Long Context Qwen2.5 72B Instruct leads

o3-mini: 33.8 (#256), Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 38.9 (#188)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 72B Instruct
LMArena Longer Query13431282
Fiction.LiveBench50%—

Writing & Preference o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 50.3 (#182), Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 46.7 (#215)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 72B Instruct
LMArena Text13371269
LMArena Creative Writing12861221
LMArena Multi-Turn13201272
Short-Story Creative Writing61.7%—
WildBench—80.2%
LiveBench Language50.7%—

Frequently asked questions

Is o3-mini better than Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?

o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 31.9 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, o3-mini or Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?

o3-mini is cheaper. It lists at $1.10 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens; Qwen2.5 72B Instruct lists at $1.40 and $5.60.

Is o3-mini or Qwen2.5 72B Instruct better for coding?

o3-mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.8 versus 33.2 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

o3-mini does, with 200K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do o3-mini and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct share?

26 benchmarks have published results for both models. o3-mini has 51 scored results on Noometry and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct has 43.

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