# o3-mini vs Qwen3.8 Max

> Qwen3.8 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.8 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index. o3-mini costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.8 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/o3-mini-vs-qwen3-8-max
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 29

## Summary

- They share 29 benchmarks with published results for both. o3-mini scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.8 Max in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.8 Max leads 73.2 to 28.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3): 18.6% for o3-mini and 74.7% for Qwen3.8 Max.
- o3-mini is cheaper at $1.10 / $4.40 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Qwen3.8 Max.
- Qwen3.8 Max accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 200K.

## Snapshot

| | o3-mini | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 36.7 | 56.8 |
| Rank | 212 | 22 |
| Context | 200K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $1.10 | $2 |
| Output $/M | $4.40 | $6 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |

## Coding

- o3-mini: 40.8 (#132)
- Qwen3.8 Max: 53.5 (#29)

| Benchmark | o3-mini | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 39.8% | 53.2% |
| LMArena Coding | 1378 | 1502 |
| DeepSWE | — | 57.5% |
| Aider Polyglot | 60.4% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1674 |
| FrontierSWE | — | 17.8% |
| GSO | 1.3% | — |
| WeirdML | 43.7% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 82.7% | — |
| CadEval | 54% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- o3-mini: 29.6 (#84)
- Qwen3.8 Max: 45.4 (#14)

| Benchmark | o3-mini | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | — | 63.3% |
| τ²-bench Banking | — | 55.1% |
| Cybench | 22.5% | — |
| GDP.pdf | — | 23.2% |

## Reasoning

- o3-mini: 16.3 (#305)
- Qwen3.8 Max: 54.4 (#26)

| Benchmark | o3-mini | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 0.3% | 20% |
| Chess Puzzles | 17% | 40% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1366 | 1496 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 7% | 38% |
| DTBench | 68.8% | 92% |
| LMCA | 19% | 46.2% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 140.34 | 156.41 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 3% | — |
| SimpleBench | 22.8% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 88.3% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 34.5% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 89.6% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 70.6% | — |
| ForecastBench | 59.6 | — |
| LiveBench | 75.9% | — |

## Math

- o3-mini: 28.1 (#244)
- Qwen3.8 Max: 73.2 (#20)

| Benchmark | o3-mini | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 18.6% | 74.7% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 0% | 46.3% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 76.9% | 100% |
| LMArena Math | 1396 | 1499 |
| ProofBench | — | 58% |
| LiveBench Math | 77.3% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 96.5% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 12.4% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 4.2% | — |

## Knowledge

- o3-mini: 38.3 (#146)
- Qwen3.8 Max: 61.7 (#27)

| Benchmark | o3-mini | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 77% | 92.7% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 15.3% | 47.3% |
| LMArena Expert | 1364 | 1507 |
| Confabulations | 17.9% | — |

## Multimodal

- o3-mini: —
- Qwen3.8 Max: 37.2 (#75)

| Benchmark | o3-mini | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1314 |
| Furniture Assembly | — | 20% |

## Multilingual

- o3-mini: 45.7 (#164)
- Qwen3.8 Max: 56.7 (#18)

| Benchmark | o3-mini | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1319 | 1472 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1379 | 1538 |
| LMArena French | 1334 | 1503 |
| LMArena German | 1303 | 1483 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1286 | 1467 |
| LMArena Korean | 1314 | 1461 |
| LMArena Russian | 1304 | 1481 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1321 | 1492 |

## Instruction Following

- o3-mini: 75.1 (#72)
- Qwen3.8 Max: 77.6 (#17)

| Benchmark | o3-mini | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1337 | 1479 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 84.4% | — |

## Long Context

- o3-mini: 33.8 (#256)
- Qwen3.8 Max: 45.6 (#31)

| Benchmark | o3-mini | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1343 | 1489 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 50% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- o3-mini: 50.3 (#182)
- Qwen3.8 Max: 67.1 (#30)

| Benchmark | o3-mini | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1337 | 1483 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1286 | 1479 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1320 | 1489 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 61.7% | — |
| LiveBench Language | 50.7% | — |

## FAQ

### Is o3-mini better than Qwen3.8 Max?

Qwen3.8 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.8 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index. o3-mini costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.8 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, o3-mini or Qwen3.8 Max?

o3-mini is cheaper. It lists at $1.10 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens; Qwen3.8 Max lists at $2 and $6.

### Is o3-mini or Qwen3.8 Max better for coding?

Qwen3.8 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 53.5 versus 40.8 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.8 Max does, with 1M tokens against 200K.

### How many benchmarks do o3-mini and Qwen3.8 Max share?

29 benchmarks have published results for both models. o3-mini has 51 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.8 Max has 39.