MiniMax M2 vs Qwen3.8 27B
Qwen3.8 27B leads llmrun Score 121.5 to 104.0; only Qwen3.8 27B fits 24 GB (Q4_K_M); MiniMax M2 needs 65.3 GB even at its smallest quant.
Model A · MiniMax
MiniMax M2228.7B · 11B active · 192K context · Other · Oct 2025
Model B · Alibaba
Qwen3.8 27B27.8B · 256K context · Apache 2.0 · Aug 2026
Choose MiniMax M2 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 104.0
Fits a 12 GB GPU
IQ3_XXS · 12 GB; MiniMax M2 needs 65.3 GB at its smallest quant
Fits a Mac 32 GB
Q4_K_M · 17.9 GB; MiniMax M2 needs 65.3 GB at its smallest quant
Lighter on memory
17.4 vs 137.8 GB at Q4_K_M
Longer context window
256K vs 192K tokens
Also does vision
MiniMax M2 doesn't list it
On your hardware
Each model at its default quant (Q4_K_M), a smaller one when it must. Estimates, ±20%.
8 GB
RTX 4060 · 8 GB tier
MiniMax M2
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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).
Overall
MiniMax M2
Qwen3.8 27B
Coding
MiniMax M2
no data
Qwen3.8 27B
Agents
MiniMax M2
Qwen3.8 27B
no data
Math
MiniMax M2
no data
Qwen3.8 27B
Science
MiniMax M2
no data
Qwen3.8 27B
Reasoning
MiniMax M2
no data
Qwen3.8 27B
MiniMax M2 · #38 of 92 open models · #22 of 71 that fit ≤192 GB
Qwen3.8 27B · #10 of 92 open models · #1 of 34 that fit 24 GB
MiniMax M2
1343.3#80/186 open
ArenaLMArena · Oct 2026
Qwen3.8 27B
1438.1#22/186 open
ArenaLMArena · Oct 2026
MiniMax M2
1297.2#42/50 open
ArenaLMArena · Oct 2026
Qwen3.8 27B
1592.8#10/50 open
ArenaLMArena · Oct 2026
17 more boards (other shared and single-model boards)
Only MiniMax M2 (5)
- SWE-bench Verified61.0%
- Terminal-Bench30.0%
- MMLU-Pro82.0%
- SWE-bench Bash Only61.0%
- Vending-Bench 2160.6
Only Qwen3.8 27B (12)
- LiveBench Coding75.7
- LiveBench Reasoning80.0
- LiveBench Math86.2
- ARC-AGI-242.4%
- SciCode46.6%
- ARC-AGI87.5%
- CritPt5.4%
- DTBench88.0%
- LMCA41.4%
- APEX-Agents47.5%
- Surface Evolver Bench45.0%
- ProofBench16.0%
VRAM by quantization
Memory to load the model and 2K context; below it, the total at 32K and 128K context. Lighter side in bold.
Q2_K
MiniMax M2
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
17 more quants
IQ2_XXS
MiniMax M2
63.5 GB74.0 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
69.2 GB63.1 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
72.0 GB63.4 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
77.7 GB78.1 GB file
32K 81.6 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
89.2 GB93.6 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
IQ3_XS
MiniMax M2
94.9 GB93.8 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
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
103 GB104.0 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
118 GB108.2 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
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
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
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
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
not listed
Qwen3.8 27B
17.8 GB18.8 GB file
32K 19.1 GB · 128K 24.5 GB
Q5_K_S
MiniMax M2
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
not listed
Qwen3.8 27B
20.9 GB21.5 GB file
32K 22.2 GB · 128K 27.6 GB
BF16
MiniMax M2
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
MiniMax M2
Ollama · Q4_K_M
ollama run hf.co/unsloth/MiniMax-M2-GGUF:Q4_K_MQwen3.8 27B
Ollama · Q4_K_M
ollama run hf.co/unsloth/Qwen3.8-27B-GGUF:Q4_K_M| Spec | MiniMax M2 | 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 | Oct 2025 | Aug 2026 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better, MiniMax M2 or Qwen3.8 27B?
Qwen3.8 27B leads llmrun Score 121.5 to 104.0; only Qwen3.8 27B fits 24 GB (Q4_K_M); MiniMax M2 needs 65.3 GB even at its smallest quant. Choose MiniMax M2 for also does chat; choose Qwen3.8 27B for higher llmrun Score and fits a 12 GB GPU.
Which needs less VRAM, MiniMax M2 or Qwen3.8 27B?
At Q4_K_M, MiniMax M2 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 or Qwen3.8 27B on a 16 GB GPU?
MiniMax M2 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 or Qwen3.8 27B?
MiniMax M2 supports 196,608 tokens and Qwen3.8 27B supports 262,144 tokens.