MiniMax M2.5 vs Qwen3.8 27B

Qwen3.8 27B leads llmrun Score 121.5 to 111.8; only Qwen3.8 27B fits 24 GB (Q4_K_M); MiniMax M2.5 needs 65.3 GB even at its smallest quant.

Model A · MiniMax

MiniMax M2.5

111.8llmrun Score

228.7B · 11B active · 192K context · Other · Feb 2026

ChatFunctions

Model B · Alibaba

Qwen3.8 27B

121.5llmrun Score

27.8B · 256K context · Apache 2.0 · Aug 2026

VisionFunctions

Which should you choose?

Choose MiniMax M2.5 if you want…

Also does chat
Qwen3.8 27B doesn't list it

Choose Qwen3.8 27B if you want…

Higher llmrun Score
121.5 vs 111.8
Stronger at reasoning
124.1 vs 113.7
Ahead on the benchmarks
5 of 5 shared boards
Fits a 12 GB GPU
IQ3_XXS · 12 GB; MiniMax M2.5 needs 65.3 GB at its smallest quant
Fits a Mac 32 GB
Q4_K_M · 17.9 GB; MiniMax M2.5 needs 65.3 GB at its smallest quant
Lighter on memory
17.4 vs 137.8 GB at Q4_K_M

On your hardware

Each model at its default quant (Q4_K_M), a smaller one when it must. Estimates, ±20%.

MemoryMiniMax M2.5Qwen3.8 27B

8 GB

RTX 4060 · 8 GB tier

MiniMax M2.5

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 65.3 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 8.8 GB

12 GB

RTX 3060 12GB · 12 GB tier

MiniMax M2.5

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 65.3 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

IQ3_XXS · ~20 tok/s

12 GB · up to 16Kfits

16 GB

RTX 5060 Ti 16GB · 16 GB tier

MiniMax M2.5

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 65.3 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Q3_K_L · ~19 tok/s

15.4 GB · up to 16Kfits

24 GBreference

RTX 4090 · 24 GB tier

MiniMax M2.5

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 65.3 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~38 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 64Kfits

32 GB

RTX 5090 · 32 GB tier

MiniMax M2.5

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 65.3 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~67 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kfits

48 GB

RTX A6000 · 48 GB tier

MiniMax M2.5

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 65.3 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~29 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kfits

Mac 32 GB

Mac Mini M4 · Macs

MiniMax M2.5

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 65.3 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~5 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 128Kfits

Mac 64 GB

Mac Studio M4 Max · Macs

MiniMax M2.5

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 65.3 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~22 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kfits

Mac 128 GB

Mac Studio M4 Max · Macs

MiniMax M2.5

Q3_K_L · ~37 tok/s

119.6 GB · up to 32K

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~22 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kmore headroom

Reference GPU: RTX 4090. Tinted cell = the better pick on that machine (fits, more headroom, or at least 10% faster).

llmrun Score

with its 90% range · bars share one scale

MiniMax M2.5 Qwen3.8 27B

Overall

MiniMax M2.5

111.8109–115

Qwen3.8 27B

121.5119–124

Coding

MiniMax M2.5

108.597–120

Qwen3.8 27B

112.1105–119

Agents

MiniMax M2.5

110.4105–116

Qwen3.8 27B

no data

Math

MiniMax M2.5

no data

Qwen3.8 27B

117.5111–125

Science

MiniMax M2.5

no data

Qwen3.8 27B

112.093–131

Reasoning

MiniMax M2.5

113.7110–118

Qwen3.8 27B

124.1121–127

MiniMax M2.5 · #19 of 92 open models · #6 of 71 that fit ≤192 GB

Qwen3.8 27B · #10 of 92 open models · #1 of 34 that fit 24 GB

Benchmarks

5 shared boards: MiniMax M2.5 leads 0, Qwen3.8 27B leads 5 · Benchmarks imported Oct 2026

BoardMiniMax M2.5Qwen3.8 27B

LMArena Text

MiniMax M2.5

1390.9#56/186 open

ArenaLMArena · Oct 2026

Qwen3.8 27B

1438.1#22/186 open

ArenaLMArena · Oct 2026

LMArena WebDev

MiniMax M2.5

1386.7#28/50 open

ArenaLMArena · Oct 2026

Qwen3.8 27B

1592.8#10/50 open

ArenaLMArena · Oct 2026

ARC-AGI-2

MiniMax M2.5

4.9%#10/18 open

IndependentEpoch AI · Feb 2026

Qwen3.8 27B

42.4%#5/18 open

IndependentEpoch AI · Aug 2026

ARC-AGI

MiniMax M2.5

63.7%#10/18 open

IndependentEpoch AI · Feb 2026

Qwen3.8 27B

87.5%#5/18 open

IndependentEpoch AI · Aug 2026

ProofBench

MiniMax M2.5

4.0%#21/26 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Feb 2026

Qwen3.8 27B

16.0%#16/26 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Aug 2026

17 more boards (other shared and single-model boards)

Only MiniMax M2.5 (8)

Only Qwen3.8 27B (9)

VRAM by quantization

Memory to load the model and 2K context; below it, the total at 32K and 128K context. Lighter side in bold.

QuantMiniMax M2.5Qwen3.8 27B

Q2_K

MiniMax M2.5

97.8 GB83.3 GB file

32K 102 GB · 128K 114 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

12.6 GB10.8 GB file

32K 13.9 GB · 128K 19.3 GB

Q3_K_S

MiniMax M2.5

101 GB98.7 GB file

32K 105 GB · 128K 117 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

12.9 GB12.7 GB file

32K 14.2 GB · 128K 19.6 GB

Q3_K_M

MiniMax M2.5

112 GB109.3 GB file

32K 116 GB · 128K 128 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

14.3 GB13.4 GB file

32K 15.6 GB · 128K 21.0 GB

Q4_0

MiniMax M2.5

115 GB129.5 GB file

32K 119 GB · 128K 131 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

14.6 GB~13.9 GB file

32K 16.0 GB · 128K 21.4 GB

Q4_K_M

MiniMax M2.5

138 GB138.3 GB file

32K 142 GB · 128K 154 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

17.4 GB16.5 GB file

32K 18.8 GB · 128K 24.1 GB

Q5_K_M

MiniMax M2.5

164 GB162.3 GB file

32K 167 GB · 128K 180 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

20.5 GB19.8 GB file

32K 21.9 GB · 128K 27.3 GB

Q6_K

MiniMax M2.5

189 GB187.8 GB file

32K 193 GB · 128K 206 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

23.7 GB22.0 GB file

32K 25.0 GB · 128K 30.4 GB

Q8_0

MiniMax M2.5

229 GB243.1 GB file

32K 233 GB · 128K 246 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

28.5 GB29.0 GB file

32K 29.9 GB · 128K 35.2 GB

18 more quants

IQ2_XXS

MiniMax M2.5

63.5 GB74.1 GB file

32K 67.4 GB · 128K 79.8 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

8.4 GB7.3 GB file

32K 9.7 GB · 128K 15.1 GB

IQ2_XS

MiniMax M2.5

69.2 GB67.0 GB file

32K 73.1 GB · 128K 85.6 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

9.1 GB9.1 GB file

32K 10.4 GB · 128K 15.8 GB

IQ2_S

MiniMax M2.5

72.0 GB68.0 GB file

32K 75.9 GB · 128K 88.4 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

9.4 GB8.4 GB file

32K 10.8 GB · 128K 16.1 GB

IQ2_M

MiniMax M2.5

77.8 GB78.2 GB file

32K 81.7 GB · 128K 94.1 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

10.1 GB10.5 GB file

32K 11.5 GB · 128K 16.8 GB

IQ3_XXS

MiniMax M2.5

89.2 GB93.3 GB file

32K 93.1 GB · 128K 106 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

11.5 GB10.9 GB file

32K 12.9 GB · 128K 18.2 GB

Q2_K_S

MiniMax M2.5

92.0 GB77.6 GB file

32K 95.9 GB · 128K 108 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

not listed

IQ3_XS

MiniMax M2.5

94.9 GB93.3 GB file

32K 98.8 GB · 128K 111 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

12.2 GB10.4 GB file

32K 13.6 GB · 128K 18.9 GB

IQ3_S

MiniMax M2.5

97.8 GB98.7 GB file

32K 102 GB · 128K 114 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

12.6 GB12.0 GB file

32K 13.9 GB · 128K 19.3 GB

IQ3_M

MiniMax M2.5

103 GB100.0 GB file

32K 107 GB · 128K 120 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

13.3 GB14.9 GB file

32K 14.6 GB · 128K 20.0 GB

Q3_K_L

MiniMax M2.5

118 GB118.4 GB file

32K 122 GB · 128K 134 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

15.0 GB14.1 GB file

32K 16.3 GB · 128K 21.7 GB

IQ4_XS

MiniMax M2.5

123 GB121.9 GB file

32K 127 GB · 128K 140 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

15.7 GB14.3 GB file

32K 17.0 GB · 128K 22.4 GB

IQ4_NL

MiniMax M2.5

129 GB129.0 GB file

32K 133 GB · 128K 146 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

16.4 GB17.4 GB file

32K 17.7 GB · 128K 23.1 GB

Q4_1

MiniMax M2.5

129 GB143.2 GB file

32K 133 GB · 128K 146 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

16.4 GB17.5 GB file

32K 17.7 GB · 128K 23.1 GB

Q4_K_S

MiniMax M2.5

129 GB130.0 GB file

32K 133 GB · 128K 146 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

16.4 GB15.4 GB file

32K 17.7 GB · 128K 23.1 GB

Q4_K_L

MiniMax M2.5

not listed

Qwen3.8 27B

17.8 GB18.8 GB file

32K 19.1 GB · 128K 24.5 GB

Q5_K_S

MiniMax M2.5

158 GB157.5 GB file

32K 162 GB · 128K 174 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

19.9 GB18.7 GB file

32K 21.2 GB · 128K 26.6 GB

Q5_K_L

MiniMax M2.5

not listed

Qwen3.8 27B

20.9 GB21.5 GB file

32K 22.2 GB · 128K 27.6 GB

BF16

MiniMax M2.5

458 GB457.5 GB file

32K 462 GB · 128K 474 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

56.3 GB54.7 GB file

32K 57.7 GB · 128K 63.0 GB

How to run each

MiniMax M2.5

Ollama · Q4_K_M

$ollama run hf.co/unsloth/MiniMax-M2.5-GGUF:Q4_K_M

All ways to run MiniMax M2.5 →

Qwen3.8 27B

Ollama · Q4_K_M

$ollama run hf.co/unsloth/Qwen3.8-27B-GGUF:Q4_K_M

All ways to run Qwen3.8 27B →

Specifications

Specifications of MiniMax M2.5 and Qwen3.8 27B
Spec	MiniMax M2.5	Qwen3.8 27B
Publisher	MiniMax	Alibaba
Parameters	228.7B	27.8B
Active parameters	11B per token	—
Architecture	MiniMaxM2ForCausalLM	Qwen3_5ForConditionalGeneration
Context	192K tokens	256K tokens
Modalities	Chat, Function-calling	Vision, Function-calling
License	Other	Apache 2.0
Released	Feb 2026	Aug 2026

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, MiniMax M2.5 or Qwen3.8 27B?

Qwen3.8 27B leads llmrun Score 121.5 to 111.8; only Qwen3.8 27B fits 24 GB (Q4_K_M); MiniMax M2.5 needs 65.3 GB even at its smallest quant. Choose MiniMax M2.5 for also does chat; choose Qwen3.8 27B for higher llmrun Score and stronger at reasoning.

Which needs less VRAM, MiniMax M2.5 or Qwen3.8 27B?

At Q4_K_M, MiniMax M2.5 requires 137.8 GB while Qwen3.8 27B needs 17.4 GB, making Qwen3.8 27B the easier model to run on your local setup.

Can I run MiniMax M2.5 or Qwen3.8 27B on a 16 GB GPU?

MiniMax M2.5 does not fit (smallest quant needs 65.3 GB); Qwen3.8 27B fits at Q3_K_L.

Which has a longer context window, MiniMax M2.5 or Qwen3.8 27B?

MiniMax M2.5 supports 196,608 tokens and Qwen3.8 27B supports 262,144 tokens.