# Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct vs Step 3

> Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.0 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/qwen3-next-80b-a3b-instruct-vs-step-3
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 16

## Summary

- They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct scores higher in 7 categories and Step 3 in 1 category; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in multilingual, where Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct leads 52.1 to 46.3.

## Snapshot

| | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | StepFun |
| Noometry Index | 43.0 | 40.5 |
| Rank | 102 | 149 |
| Context | 131K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.50 | — |
| Output $/M | $2 | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 42.5 (#98)
- Step 3: 40.1 (#147)

| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1440 | 1367 |

## Reasoning

- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 31.1 (#81)
- Step 3: 28.4 (#105)

| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 66.7% | 62.3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1428 | 1355 |

## Math

- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 38.8 (#126)
- Step 3: 37.6 (#148)

| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1440 | 1366 |
| Omni-MATH | 46.7% | — |

## Knowledge

- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 41.8 (#106)
- Step 3: 36.8 (#164)

| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1417 | 1333 |
| MMLU-Pro | 78.6% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 9.3% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 63% | — |

## Multimodal

- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: —
- Step 3: 35.5 (#86)

| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1177 |

## Multilingual

- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 52.1 (#93)
- Step 3: 46.3 (#159)

| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1407 | 1327 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1460 | 1397 |
| LMArena German | 1417 | 1371 |
| LMArena Korean | 1364 | 1269 |
| LMArena Russian | 1404 | 1331 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1435 | 1371 |
| LMArena French | 1413 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1395 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 70.8 (#159)
- Step 3: 70.4 (#164)

| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1389 | 1332 |
| IFEval | 81% | — |

## Long Context

- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 37.0 (#223)
- Step 3: 40.3 (#157)

| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1403 | 1326 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 55.6% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 58.0 (#121)
- Step 3: 54.3 (#151)

| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1417 | 1350 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1334 | 1321 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1416 | 1341 |
| WildBench | 80.7% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct better than Step 3?

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.0 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct or Step 3 better for coding?

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.5 versus 40.1 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct and Step 3 share?

16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct has 25 scored results on Noometry and Step 3 has 17.