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Model comparison

MiniMax M3 vs Qwen3.8 Max

Updated August 3, 2026. Public scores include evidence status and uncertainty. They are not guarantees for a specific workload.

MiniMax M3

MiniMax

68.7/100

Supported · Public rank #18

90% interval 64.1–73.3

Qwen3.8 Max

Alibaba

65.4/100

Estimated · Public rank #31

90% interval 55.5–75.3

MiniMax M3 has the higher public score estimate, 68.74 versus 65.4, but the 90% score intervals overlap. Treat that as a lead, not a settled winner.

8 results are shared. Category rows based on different benchmark sets are marked directional and do not name a winner.

Which one for your work

Recommendations appear only when a shared evidence basis or an explicit operating constraint supports the call. Secondary and unsupported use cases stay disclosed below the initial list.

No workload recommendation clears the current evidence threshold.

Use the matched evidence, workload costs, and sourced specifications below instead of treating a point score as a universal answer.

Show secondary and unsupported calls
  • Coding work

    Code generation, repair, and software-engineering tasks

    Not enough matched evidence

    The category averages use different weighted benchmark sets, so they are directional rather than like-for-like.

    Confidence: limited

  • Agentic work

    Tool use, computer use, and multi-step task completion

    Not enough matched evidence

    The category averages use different weighted benchmark sets, so they are directional rather than like-for-like.

    Confidence: limited

  • Long documents

    Prompts that approach the documented context limit

    No clear pick

    The documented context windows are equal.

    Confidence: documented

  • Chat turn cost

    1K fresh input + 500 output tokens

    Not enough matched evidence

    A complete comparable API-rate estimate is not available for both models.

    Confidence: listed-rates

  • Cache-heavy agent loop cost

    200K cached + 20K fresh input + 10K output tokens

    Not enough matched evidence

    A complete comparable API-rate estimate is not available for both models.

    Confidence: listed-rates

  • Repository review cost

    50K fresh input + 3K output tokens

    Not enough matched evidence

    A complete comparable API-rate estimate is not available for both models.

    Confidence: listed-rates

What is actually comparable

Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results present for only one model describe coverage, not superiority.

Shared results
8
MiniMax M3 only
13
Qwen3.8 Max only
44
Like-for-like categories
0 / 8

3 categories use different evidence sets. Those rows remain visible for coverage context but do not name a winner.

Category results, on a stated basis

Each row states whether both averages use the same weighted benchmark set. Directional and not-comparable rows remain visible, but they never receive a winner in this template.

Agentic

Directional only
MiniMax M3
72.3
Qwen3.8 Max
86.1
Weighted basis
3 vs 1 rows
Reading
Directional only

Coding

Directional only
MiniMax M3
72.2
Qwen3.8 Max
67.7
Weighted basis
2 vs 1 rows
Reading
Directional only

Multimodal

Directional only
MiniMax M3
64.9
Qwen3.8 Max
86.3
Weighted basis
2 vs 2 rows
Reading
Directional only

Reasoning

Not comparable
MiniMax M3
Not measured
Qwen3.8 Max
78.3
Weighted basis
0 vs 2 rows
Reading
Not comparable

Knowledge

Not comparable
MiniMax M3
Not measured
Qwen3.8 Max
50.2
Weighted basis
0 vs 2 rows
Reading
Not comparable

Math

Not comparable
MiniMax M3
85.7
Qwen3.8 Max
Not measured
Weighted basis
1 vs 0 rows
Reading
Not comparable

Multilingual

Not comparable
MiniMax M3
Not measured
Qwen3.8 Max
Not measured
Weighted basis
0 vs 0 rows
Reading
Not comparable

Instruction following

Not comparable
MiniMax M3
Not measured
Qwen3.8 Max
82.8
Weighted basis
0 vs 1 rows
Reading
Not comparable

Shape of the matched evidence

Only shared public evidence is shown. Sparse evidence stays a ruled list rather than being closed into a radar shape.

Too few matched category axes support a radar. The ruled list below shows only shared benchmark results; positions use each benchmark’s normalized display scale when available.

What each workload costs

Three fixed token mixes turn per-token rates into comparable decisions. Each scenario states context fit and whether cached input had to fall back to the published list-input rate.

Chat turn

1K fresh input + 500 output tokens

MiniMax M3
$0.0009
Fits in one request
Qwen3.8 Max
API rate not published
Fits in one request

Qwen3.8 Max has no comparable published API token rate.

Repository review

50K fresh input + 3K output tokens

MiniMax M3
$0.0186
Fits in one request
Qwen3.8 Max
API rate not published
Fits in one request

Qwen3.8 Max has no comparable published API token rate.

Cache-heavy agent loop

200K cached + 20K fresh input + 10K output tokens

MiniMax M3
$0.03
Fits in one request
Qwen3.8 Max
API rate not published
Fits in one request
Cached-input rate unavailable

Qwen3.8 Max has no comparable published API token rate.

Specification differences

Sourced differences are shown directly. Missing facts stay explicit instead of being inferred from a model name or family.

Cached-input rate

A missing cached-input rate falls back to the listed input rate only in the stated workload estimate.

MiniMax M3

$0.06 per 1M cached input tokens

Qwen3.8 Max

No comparable hosted API rate

Alibaba Cloud Model Studio pricing

Documented inputs

MiniMax M3

Not sourced

Qwen3.8 Max

Not sourced

Documented outputs

MiniMax M3

Not sourced

Qwen3.8 Max

Not sourced

Provider availability

MiniMax M3

Not sourced

Qwen3.8 Max

Not sourced

Reasoning profile

MiniMax M3

Non-Reasoning

Qwen3.8 Max

Reasoning

Weight access

MiniMax M3

Open Weight

Qwen3.8 Max

Proprietary

License

MiniMax M3

Open Weight

Qwen3.8 Max

Proprietary

Release date

MiniMax M3

2026-06-01

Qwen3.8 Max

2026-08-03

If you already use one of these models
Deployment change
The models list different providers, so authentication, endpoint behavior, limits, and feature support may change.
Quality signal
MiniMax M3 has the higher public score estimate, 68.74 versus 65.4, but the 90% score intervals overlap.
Workload cost
A complete comparable API-rate estimate is not available for both models.
Context tradeoff
Both models list 1M.

Run the same representative tasks against both endpoints before changing production traffic.

Benchmark evidence

The full public result ledger is available for audit without forcing a wide desktop table onto a phone.

Browse raw public benchmark evidence65 rows

Agentic

  • Terminal-Bench 2.0

    MiniMax M366%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max

    Not directly comparable

  • BrowseComp

    MiniMax M383.5%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max

    Not directly comparable

  • OSWorld-Verified

    MiniMax M370.1%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max86.1%
    Source

    Qwen3.8 Max leads this result

  • MCP Atlas

    MiniMax M374.2%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max

    Not directly comparable

  • Claw-Eval

    MiniMax M374.5%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max

    Not directly comparable

  • BankerToolBench

    MiniMax M376.1%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max

    Not directly comparable

  • ResearchClawBench

    MiniMax M319.8%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max

    Not directly comparable

  • OSWorld 2.0

    MiniMax M34.6%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max19.4%
    Source

    Qwen3.8 Max leads this result

  • Terminal-Bench 2.1

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max86.6%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • CoWorkBench

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max74.8%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • JobBench

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max53.4%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • skillsBench

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max70.2%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • Agents' Last Exam

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max52.4%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • AutomationBench

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max27.3%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • Toolathlon-Verified

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max72.5%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • WideResearch

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max81.9%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • HLE w/ tools

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max56.2%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • WebArena-Verified

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max66.8%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • AndroidWorld

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max85.3%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • MobileWorld

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max77.8%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

Coding

  • SWE-bench Verified

    MiniMax M380.5%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max

    Not directly comparable

  • SWE-bench Pro

    MiniMax M359%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max67.7%
    Source

    Qwen3.8 Max leads this result

  • Terminal-Bench 2.0

    MiniMax M366.0%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max

    Not directly comparable

  • NL2Repo

    MiniMax M342.1%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max55.9%
    Source

    Qwen3.8 Max leads this result

  • VIBE V2

    MiniMax M350.1%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max

    Not directly comparable

  • SVG-Bench

    MiniMax M363.7%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max

    Not directly comparable

  • KernelBench Hard

    MiniMax M328.8%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max

    Not directly comparable

  • Terminal-Bench 2.1

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max86.6%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • deepSwe

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max56.6%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • FrontierSWE

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max73.5%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • MLS-Bench Lite

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max41.0%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • PaperBench

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max93.0%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

Reasoning

  • MRCRv2

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max92.9%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • LongBench v2

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max66.3%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

Knowledge

  • GPQA

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max92.6%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • GPQA-D

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max92.6%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • HLE

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max43.6%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • HLE w/o tools

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max43.6%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

Math

  • USAMO 2026

    MiniMax M385.7%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max

    Not directly comparable

Multimodal

  • OfficeQA Pro

    MiniMax M345.1%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max

    Not directly comparable

  • OmniDocBench 1.5

    MiniMax M391.6%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max92.1%
    Source

    Qwen3.8 Max leads this result

  • MMMU-Pro

    MiniMax M378.1%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max82.3%
    Source

    Qwen3.8 Max leads this result

  • VideoMMMU

    MiniMax M384.6%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max88.7%
    Source

    Qwen3.8 Max leads this result

  • Video-MME (with subtitle)

    MiniMax M385.4%
    Source
    Qwen3.8 Max90.4%
    Source

    Qwen3.8 Max leads this result

  • MathVision

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max95.2%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • MathVision w/ Python

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max97.7%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • BabyVision

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max82.0%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • BabyVision w/ Python

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max91.3%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • ZeroBench

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max24.0%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • ZeroBench w/ Python

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max49.0%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • MedXpertQA (MM)

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max80.4%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • ScreenSpot Pro

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max84.5%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • Vision2Web

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max69.0%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • CharXiv w/o tools

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max88.4%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • CharXiv

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max93.5%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • OCRBench V2

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max74.2%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • CC-OCR

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max79.6%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • RealWorldQA

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max88.0%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • ERQA

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max77.8%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • SimpleVQA

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max75.0%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • PerceptionBench

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max63.5%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • MMVU

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max82.4%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • MLVU (M-Avg)

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max90.8%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • LVBench

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max81.8%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

Instruction following

  • IFBench

    MiniMax M3
    Qwen3.8 Max82.8%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

Frequently asked questions

Which is better, MiniMax M3 or Qwen3.8 Max?

MiniMax M3 has the higher public score estimate, 68.74 versus 65.4, but the 90% score intervals overlap. The higher estimate is not a decisive winner because the uncertainty ranges overlap.

Which is better for coding, MiniMax M3 or Qwen3.8 Max?

The current coding averages use different weighted benchmark sets, so BenchLM does not name a winner from them. Read the shared benchmark rows directly and test the models on the same task set.

Which is better for agentic tasks, MiniMax M3 or Qwen3.8 Max?

The current agentic tasks averages use different weighted benchmark sets, so BenchLM does not name a winner from them. Read the shared benchmark rows directly and test the models on the same task set.

Which costs less, MiniMax M3 or Qwen3.8 Max?

Both models do not have comparable published API token rates, so this page does not name a universal price winner.

Which has the larger context window, MiniMax M3 or Qwen3.8 Max?

Both models list the same context window, 1M.

Related comparisons

Last updated August 3, 2026

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