# Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct vs Step 5 Preview

> Step 5 Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 42.5 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Step 5 Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/qwen3-next-80b-a3b-instruct-vs-step-5-preview
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 0

## Summary

- The widest gap is in coding, where Step 5 Preview leads 50.6 to 41.9.
- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct is cheaper at $0.50 / $2 per million input/output tokens, against $1 / $2.70 for Step 5 Preview.
- Step 5 Preview accepts more context: 1.02M tokens versus 131K.
- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | StepFun |
| Noometry Index | 42.5 | 43.8 |
| Rank | 100 | 78 |
| Context | 131K | 1.02M |
| Input $/M | $0.50 | $1 |
| Output $/M | $2 | $2.70 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 41.9 (#101)
- Step 5 Preview: 50.6 (#40)

| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1569 |
| SciCode | — | 58.9% |
| LMArena Coding | 1441 | — |

## Reasoning

- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 30.1 (#79)
- Step 5 Preview: 38.0 (#58)

| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 66.7% | — |
| CritPt | — | 20.9% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1428 | — |

## Math

- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 36.3 (#118)
- Step 5 Preview: —

| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Omni-MATH | 46.7% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1440 | — |

## Knowledge

- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 41.3 (#102)
- Step 5 Preview: —

| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 78.6% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 9.3% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 63% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1416 | — |

## Multilingual

- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 52.3 (#88)
- Step 5 Preview: —

| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1407 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1461 | — |
| LMArena French | 1415 | — |
| LMArena German | 1416 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1398 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1366 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1403 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1436 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 71.0 (#154)
- Step 5 Preview: —

| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 81% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1388 | — |

## Long Context

- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 37.0 (#218)
- Step 5 Preview: —

| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 55.6% | — |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1403 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 58.2 (#116)
- Step 5 Preview: —

| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1417 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1333 | — |
| WildBench | 80.7% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1415 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct better than Step 5 Preview?

Step 5 Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 42.5 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Step 5 Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct or Step 5 Preview?

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct is cheaper. It lists at $0.50 per million input tokens and $2 per million output tokens; Step 5 Preview lists at $1 and $2.70.

### Is Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct or Step 5 Preview better for coding?

Step 5 Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.6 versus 41.9 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Step 5 Preview does, with 1.02M tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct and Step 5 Preview share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct has 25 scored results on Noometry and Step 5 Preview has 3.