Model comparison

o3-mini vs Qwen2.5 7B Instruct

o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Qwen2.5 7B Instruct costs 6.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o3-mini's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 6 shared benchmarks.

o3-mini OpenAI

36.7

Rank #212 Confirmed

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct Alibaba (Qwen)

29.0

Rank #320 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 6 benchmarks with published results for both. o3-mini scores higher in 7 categories and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where o3-mini leads 38.3 to 17.0.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 76.9% for o3-mini 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 $1.10 / $4.40 for o3-mini.
  • o3-mini accepts more context: 200K tokens versus 131K.
  • Qwen2.5 7B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

o3-mini and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct specifications
o3-miniQwen2.5 7B Instruct
ProviderOpenAIAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index36.729.0
Released2024-12-202024-09
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window200K131K
Max output100K8K
Input $ / M tokens$1.10$0.17
Output $ / M tokens$4.40$0.70
Results tracked5115

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Category by category

Coding o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 40.8 (#132), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 36.5 (#208)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 7B Instruct
Aider Polyglot60.4%—
SciCode39.8%—
GSO1.3%—
WeirdML43.7%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—37.6%
LiveBench Coding82.7%—
LMArena Coding1378—
BigCodeBench Complete—46.1%
CadEval54%—

Agentic & Tool Use o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 29.6 (#84), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 23.8 (#124)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 7B Instruct
Cybench22.5%—
BALROG—7.8%

Reasoning o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 16.3 (#305), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 14.8 (#322)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 7B Instruct
Chess Puzzles17%0%
DTBench68.8%47.7%
LMCA19%6.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index140.34118.51
ARC-AGI-23%—
SimpleBench22.8%—
ARC-AGI-134.5%—
CritPt0.3%—
LiveBench Reasoning89.6%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1366—
Mystery Game Puzzles7%—
LiveBench Data Analysis70.6%—
ForecastBench59.6—
LiveBench75.9%—

Math o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 28.1 (#244), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 12.6 (#306)

Math benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 7B Instruct
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202576.9%2.5%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)18.6%—
FrontierMath Tier 40%—
Omni-MATH—29.4%
LiveBench Math77.3%—
LMArena Math1396—
MATH Level 596.5%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)12.4%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)4.2%—

Knowledge o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 38.3 (#146), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 17.0 (#286)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 7B Instruct
GPQA Diamond77%35.5%
SimpleQA Verified15.3%—
MMLU-Pro—53.9%
Confabulations17.9%—
GPQA (HELM)—34.1%
LMArena Expert1364—
MMLU—72.9%

Multilingual Not comparable

o3-mini: 45.7 (#164), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 7B Instruct
LMArena Non-English1319—
LMArena Chinese1379—
LMArena French1334—
LMArena German1303—
LMArena Japanese1286—
LMArena Korean1314—
LMArena Russian1304—
LMArena Spanish1321—

Instruction Following o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 75.1 (#72), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 63.2 (#231)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 7B Instruct
LiveBench Instruction Following84.4%—
IFEval—74.1%
LMArena Instruction Following1337—

Long Context Not comparable

o3-mini: 33.8 (#256), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 7B Instruct
Fiction.LiveBench50%—
LMArena Longer Query1343—

Writing & Preference o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 50.3 (#182), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 48.8 (#195)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen2.5 7B Instruct
LMArena Text1337—
LMArena Creative Writing1286—
Short-Story Creative Writing61.7%—
WildBench—73.1%
LMArena Multi-Turn1320—
LiveBench Language50.7%—

Frequently asked questions

Is o3-mini better than Qwen2.5 7B Instruct?

o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Qwen2.5 7B Instruct costs 6.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o3-mini's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, o3-mini 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; o3-mini lists at $1.10 and $4.40.

Is o3-mini or Qwen2.5 7B Instruct better for coding?

o3-mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.8 versus 36.5 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 7B Instruct share?

6 benchmarks have published results for both models. o3-mini has 51 scored results on Noometry and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct has 15.

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