Noometry

Model comparison

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct vs Step 5 Preview

Step 5 Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 42.5 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Step 5 Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 0 shared benchmarks.

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct Alibaba (Qwen)

42.5

Rank #100 Confirmed

Step 5 Preview StepFun

43.8

Rank #78 Reported

Summary

  • The widest gap is in coding, where Step 5 Preview leads 50.6 to 41.9.
  • Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct is cheaper at $0.50 / $2 per million input/output tokens, against $1 / $2.70 for Step 5 Preview.
  • Step 5 Preview accepts more context: 1.02M tokens versus 131K.
  • Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B InstructStep 5 Preview
ProviderAlibaba (Qwen)StepFun
Noometry Index42.543.8
Released2025-092026-09-16
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window131K1.02M
Max output33K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.50$1
Output $ / M tokens$2$2.70
Results tracked253

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Category by category

Coding Step 5 Preview leads

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 41.9 (#101), Step 5 Preview: 50.6 (#40)

BenchmarkQwen3-Next 80B-A3B InstructStep 5 Preview
LMArena WebDev—1569
SciCode—58.9%
LMArena Coding1441—

Reasoning Step 5 Preview leads

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 30.1 (#79), Step 5 Preview: 38.0 (#58)

BenchmarkQwen3-Next 80B-A3B InstructStep 5 Preview
Kagi LLM Benchmark66.7%—
CritPt—20.9%
LMArena Hard Prompts1428—

Math Not comparable

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 36.3 (#118), Step 5 Preview: —

BenchmarkQwen3-Next 80B-A3B InstructStep 5 Preview
Omni-MATH46.7%—
LMArena Math1440—

Knowledge Not comparable

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 41.3 (#102), Step 5 Preview: —

BenchmarkQwen3-Next 80B-A3B InstructStep 5 Preview
MMLU-Pro78.6%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate9.3%—
GPQA (HELM)63%—
LMArena Expert1416—

Multilingual Not comparable

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 52.3 (#88), Step 5 Preview: —

BenchmarkQwen3-Next 80B-A3B InstructStep 5 Preview
LMArena Non-English1407—
LMArena Chinese1461—
LMArena French1415—
LMArena German1416—
LMArena Japanese1398—
LMArena Korean1366—
LMArena Russian1403—
LMArena Spanish1436—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 71.0 (#154), Step 5 Preview: —

BenchmarkQwen3-Next 80B-A3B InstructStep 5 Preview
IFEval81%—
LMArena Instruction Following1388—

Long Context Not comparable

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 37.0 (#218), Step 5 Preview: —

BenchmarkQwen3-Next 80B-A3B InstructStep 5 Preview
Fiction.LiveBench55.6%—
LMArena Longer Query1403—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 58.2 (#116), Step 5 Preview: —

BenchmarkQwen3-Next 80B-A3B InstructStep 5 Preview
LMArena Text1417—
LMArena Creative Writing1333—
WildBench80.7%—
LMArena Multi-Turn1415—

Frequently asked questions

Is Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct better than Step 5 Preview?

Step 5 Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 42.5 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Step 5 Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct or Step 5 Preview?

Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct is cheaper. It lists at $0.50 per million input tokens and $2 per million output tokens; Step 5 Preview lists at $1 and $2.70.

Is Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct or Step 5 Preview better for coding?

Step 5 Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.6 versus 41.9 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Step 5 Preview does, with 1.02M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct and Step 5 Preview share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct has 25 scored results on Noometry and Step 5 Preview has 3.

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