MiniMax M1 40K vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
MiniMax M1 40K and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking are closely matched at 20.5 and 23.8 on the LLM Stats Score.
MiniMax · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
MiniMax M1 40K and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 20.5 and 23.8.
In the 5 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking wins 4; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose MiniMax M1 40K
- you are already invested in the MiniMax ecosystem
Choose Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 4 of 5 exact shared results
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2025
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
16 reported for MiniMax M1 40K · 23 for Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
MiniMax M1 40K outperforms in 1 benchmarks (TAU-bench Airline), while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is better at 4 benchmarks (AIME 2025, GPQA, MMLU-Pro, TAU-bench Retail).
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
MiniMax M1 40K has 376.0B more parameters than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking, making it 470.0% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking specifies input context (65,536 tokens). Only Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking specifies output context (65,536 tokens).
License
Usage and distribution terms
MiniMax M1 40K is licensed under MIT, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking uses Apache 2.0.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
MIT
Open weights
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
MiniMax M1 40K was released on 2025-06-16, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking was released on 2025-09-10.
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is 3 months newer than MiniMax M1 40K.
Jun 16, 2025
1.3 years ago
Sep 10, 2025
1.0 years ago
2mo newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against MiniMax M1 40K and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about MiniMax M1 40K vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking.