Head-to-head · frontier vs frontier

Gemini 3 Flash Pro vs Qwen3-Max Turbo: which model should you choose?

We compared Gemini 3 Flash Pro and Qwen3-Max Turbo on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Gemini 3 Flash Pro has the stronger average benchmark score; Qwen3-Max Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.

Google DeepMind

Gemini 3 Flash Pro

Gemini 3 Flash Pro is a frontier model from Google DeepMind. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $17.71 per million input tokens and $86.50 per million output tokens, and averages 84.8 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input
$17.71 / 1M
Output
$86.50 / 1M
Context
400,000
Avg score
84.8
Open weights
No
Full Gemini 3 Flash Pro page
Alibaba Cloud

Qwen3-Max Turbo

Qwen3-Max Turbo is a frontier model from Alibaba Cloud. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $17.70 per million input tokens and $63.95 per million output tokens, and averages 84.7 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input
$17.70 / 1M
Output
$63.95 / 1M
Context
1,000,000
Avg score
84.7
Open weights
No
Full Qwen3-Max Turbo page

Specification comparison

SpecGemini 3 Flash ProQwen3-Max TurboEdge
Input price / 1M$17.71$17.70B
Output price / 1M$86.50$63.95B
Context window400,0001,000,000B
Max output4,096128,000B
Average score84.884.7A
Arena Elo1469.21456.9A
Open weightsNoNoTie

Benchmark comparison

Gemini 3 Flash Pro wins 5, Qwen3-Max Turbo wins 7, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash ProQwen3-Max TurboGapWinner
MMLU-Pro87.086.80.2Gemini 3 Flash Pro
GPQA Diamond77.778.30.6Qwen3-Max Turbo
SWE-bench Verified73.375.92.6Qwen3-Max Turbo
HumanEval89.992.52.6Qwen3-Max Turbo
MATH-50091.891.90.1Qwen3-Max Turbo
AIME 202579.981.21.3Qwen3-Max Turbo
LiveCodeBench80.276.83.4Gemini 3 Flash Pro
IFEval92.892.10.7Gemini 3 Flash Pro
TruthfulQA86.286.30.1Qwen3-Max Turbo
HellaSwag90.690.80.2Qwen3-Max Turbo
MMMU83.078.84.2Gemini 3 Flash Pro
Arena Elo1469.21456.912.3Gemini 3 Flash Pro

Price analysis

On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Gemini 3 Flash Pro costs about $34.91 per million tokens and Qwen3-Max Turbo costs about $29.26. Qwen3-Max Turbo is roughly 16% cheaper than Gemini 3 Flash Pro. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.

Qwen3-Max Turbo has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 400,000 for Gemini 3 Flash Pro. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.

Verdict

Across 12 shared benchmarks, Gemini 3 Flash Pro wins 5, Qwen3-Max Turbo wins 7, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Gemini 3 Flash Pro leads Qwen3-Max Turbo by 0.1 points (84.8 versus 84.7).

The price picture favours Qwen3-Max Turbo. The context picture favours Qwen3-Max Turbo. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.

If you need a single default, start with Gemini 3 Flash Pro for quality-sensitive work and Qwen3-Max Turbo for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.

Choose Gemini 3 Flash Pro if

  • You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.

Choose Qwen3-Max Turbo if

  • Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
  • You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
  • You need the larger 128,000-token output limit.

FAQ

Is Gemini 3 Flash Pro better than Qwen3-Max Turbo?

On the index average, Gemini 3 Flash Pro leads Qwen3-Max Turbo by 0.1 points (84.8 versus 84.7). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Gemini 3 Flash Pro wins 5 benchmarks, Qwen3-Max Turbo wins 7.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3 Flash Pro or Qwen3-Max Turbo?

Qwen3-Max Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $29.26 per million tokens, versus $34.91 for Gemini 3 Flash Pro.

Which has the larger context window?

Qwen3-Max Turbo has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Gemini 3 Flash Pro has 400,000 tokens.

Are these models open weights?

Gemini 3 Flash Pro is proprietary; Qwen3-Max Turbo is proprietary.

Which should I choose for production?

If you need a single default, start with Gemini 3 Flash Pro for quality-sensitive work and Qwen3-Max Turbo for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.

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