# Gemma 3 27B vs MiniMax-M2.5

> MiniMax-M2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.1 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 5.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-27b-vs-minimax-m2-5
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 21

## Summary

- They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 27B scores higher in 0 categories and MiniMax-M2.5 in 9 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in coding, where MiniMax-M2.5 leads 47.9 to 22.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 40.4% for Gemma 3 27B and 55.2% for MiniMax-M2.5.
- Gemma 3 27B is cheaper at $0.08 / $0.16 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.5.
- MiniMax-M2.5 accepts more context: 205K tokens versus 131K.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 27B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 30.5 | 38.1 |
| Rank | 277 | 181 |
| Context | 131K | 205K |
| Input $/M | $0.08 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $0.16 | $1.20 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 27B: 22.1 (#329)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 47.9 (#53)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1322 | 1380 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 75.8% |
| Aider Polyglot | 4.9% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1386 |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | — | 68.3% |
| SciCode | 21.2% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 39.9% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 618.17 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 27B: 24.9 (#105)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 30.2 (#70)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 42.7% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 29.5% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | -23.16 |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 27B: 16.3 (#297)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 17.6 (#281)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.4% | 55.2% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1340 | 1372 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 130.04 | 146.68 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 4.9% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 16.8% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 63.7% |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 43.8% | — |
| DTBench | 52.5% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 51.5% | — |
| LMCA | 12.3% | — |
| LiveBench | 50% | — |

## Math

- Gemma 3 27B: 24.4 (#261)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 25.8 (#242)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1312 | 1378 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 22.5% | — |
| ProofBench | — | 4% |
| LiveBench Math | 55.4% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 74% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 27B: 25.4 (#256)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 38.6 (#132)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.4% | 9.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1303 | 1378 |
| GPQA Diamond | 47.7% | — |
| Confabulations | 40.3% | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 3 27B: 32.0 (#94)
- MiniMax-M2.5: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1165 | — |
| GeoBench | 52% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 27B: 47.0 (#150)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 47.3 (#147)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1334 | 1338 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1347 | 1392 |
| LMArena French | 1368 | 1363 |
| LMArena German | 1362 | 1361 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1287 | 1169 |
| LMArena Korean | 1308 | 1232 |
| LMArena Russian | 1349 | 1359 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1348 | 1354 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 27B: 70.8 (#155)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 71.7 (#143)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1321 | 1353 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 74.9% | — |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 27B: 27.6 (#288)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 37.4 (#211)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1333 | 1367 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 33.3% | — |
| CL-bench | — | 11.4% |
| CL-bench Life | — | 6.3% |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 27B: 52.7 (#161)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 54.1 (#149)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1358 | 1359 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1346 | 1331 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1266 | 1361 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1344 | 1364 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 79.9% | — |
| LiveBench Language | 34.6% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 27B better than MiniMax-M2.5?

MiniMax-M2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.1 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 5.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M2.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 27B or MiniMax-M2.5?

Gemma 3 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.08 per million input tokens and $0.16 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2.5 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

### Is Gemma 3 27B or MiniMax-M2.5 better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 47.9 versus 22.1 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M2.5 does, with 205K tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 27B and MiniMax-M2.5 share?

21 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 27B has 43 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.5 has 33.