ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B vs MiniMax-M3 vs Qwen3.6 27B

MiniMax-M3 comes out ahead, 69 to 65 and 62 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. NVIDIA

    Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B

    Released Jun 4, 2026

    62/100
    • ECI146.2
    • Price$0.50 / $2.50
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B
  2. Our pick

    MiniMax

    MiniMax-M3

    Released Jun 1, 2026

    69/100
    • ECI147.0
    • Price$0.30 / $1.20
    • Context1.05M
    Full specs Remove MiniMax-M3

  3. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.6 27B

    Released Apr 22, 2026

    65/100
    • ECI146.5
    • Price$0.60 / $3.60
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.6 27B
01 — Verdict

MiniMax-M3 is our pick

MiniMax-M3 is the better all-round choice, scoring 69/100 against Qwen3.6 27B (65) and Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (62). It leads on price. Qwen3.6 27B wins on inputs & features. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityMiniMax-M3Capabilities Index (ECI): MiniMax-M3 147.0 · Qwen3.6 27B 146.5 · Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B 146.2
  • Lowest priceMiniMax-M3MiniMax-M3 $0.525 · Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B $1.00 · Qwen3.6 27B $1.35 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextMiniMax-M3MiniMax-M3 1,048,576 · Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B 1,000,000 · Qwen3.6 27B 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.6 27BNemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B: Text · MiniMax-M3: Text, Images, Video · Qwen3.6 27B: Text, Images, Audio, Video
  • Self-hostingAll open weightsEvery model here can be downloaded and run on your own hardware
How the score is built
MeasureWeightNemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55BMiniMax-M3Qwen3.6 27B
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%737474
Price25%506344
Inputs & features15%457090
Context window10%606137
Overall100%62/10069/10065/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B vs MiniMax-M3 vs Qwen3.6 27B specifications side by side
SpecificationNemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55BNVIDIAMiniMax-M3MiniMaxQwen3.6 27BAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)146.2147.0 (best)146.5
ECI rank#70 of 148#62 of 148 (best)#68 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions85.4%90.9% (best)85.9%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics——35.1%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics86.7%71.1%91.1% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input$0.50$0.30 (best)$0.60
Output$2.50$1.20 (best)$3.60
Cached input$0.15$0.06 (best)—
Blended (3:1)$1.00$0.525 (best)$1.35
Long-context rateSame rateOver 512K: $0.60 / $2.40Same rate
Price sourceOfficial Nvidia APIOfficial MiniMax (minimax.io) APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window1,000,000 tokens1,048,576 tokens (best)262,144 tokens
Max output128,000 tokens512,000 tokens (best)65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoYesYes
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoNoYes
VideoNoYesYes
ReasoningYesYesYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesNoYes
Availability
WeightsOpenOpenOpen
API model IDnvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55bMiniMax-M3qwen3.6-27b
API providers2142 (best)27
ReleasedJun 4, 2026Jun 1, 2026Apr 22, 2026
Knowledge cutoff———
03 — Cost

What would a month cost?

Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.

  • Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B$10.00
  • MiniMax-M3$5.40
  • Qwen3.6 27B$13.20
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B, MiniMax-M3 or Qwen3.6 27B?

MiniMax-M3 is the better all-round choice, scoring 69/100 against Qwen3.6 27B (65) and Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (62). It leads on price. Qwen3.6 27B wins on inputs & features. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B, MiniMax-M3 or Qwen3.6 27B?

MiniMax-M3 is cheaper at $0.30 input / $1.20 output per million tokens (official MiniMax (minimax.io) API price). Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B costs $0.50 input / $2.50 output per million tokens (official Nvidia API price); Qwen3.6 27B costs $0.60 input / $3.60 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.525 per million tokens for MiniMax-M3 versus $1.00 for Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (1.9× as much) and $1.35 for Qwen3.6 27B (2.6× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

MiniMax-M3 scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): MiniMax-M3 147.0 (#62 of 148), Qwen3.6 27B 146.5 (#68 of 148) and Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B 146.2 (#70 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (142.7–149.8 vs 144.2–147.9), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — MiniMax-M3 90.9%, Qwen3.6 27B 85.9%, Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B 85.4%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.6 27B 91.1%, Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B 86.7%, MiniMax-M3 71.1%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B, MiniMax-M3 and Qwen3.6 27B yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, MiniMax-M3 leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M3 has the largest context window at 1,048,576 tokens, against 1,000,000 for Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B and 262,144 for Qwen3.6 27B. Maximum output per response: Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B up to 128,000, MiniMax-M3 up to 512,000, Qwen3.6 27B up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B accepts text; MiniMax-M3 accepts text, images and video; Qwen3.6 27B accepts text, images, audio and video. Qwen3.6 27B handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Yes, all three publish their weights, so you can self-host them.

Which is newer?

Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B is the newest, released Jun 4, 2026. MiniMax-M3 came out Jun 1, 2026; Qwen3.6 27B came out Apr 22, 2026.

How do you decide the winner?

Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.

05 — Keep comparing

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