Nova Pro Max vs Qwen3: which model should you choose?
We compared Nova Pro Max and Qwen3 on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Nova Pro Max has the stronger average benchmark score; Qwen3 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Nova Pro Max
Nova Pro Max is a multimodal model from Amazon. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $14.05 per million input tokens and $71.59 per million output tokens, and averages 81.2 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $14.05 / 1M
- Output
- $71.59 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 81.2
- Open weights
- No
Qwen3
Qwen3 is a multimodal model from Alibaba Cloud. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $5.04 per million input tokens and $22.52 per million output tokens, and averages 80.3 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.04 / 1M
- Output
- $22.52 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 80.3
- Open weights
- Yes
Specification comparison
| Spec | Nova Pro Max | Qwen3 | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $14.05 | $5.04 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $71.59 | $22.52 | B |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 128,000 | A |
| Max output | 16,384 | 8,192 | A |
| Average score | 81.2 | 80.3 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1423.2 | 1420.9 | A |
| Open weights | No | Yes | B |
Benchmark comparison
Nova Pro Max wins 10, Qwen3 wins 2, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Nova Pro Max | Qwen3 | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 84.2 | 81.2 | 3.0 | Nova Pro Max |
| GPQA Diamond | 78.3 | 77.7 | 0.6 | Nova Pro Max |
| SWE-bench Verified | 67.4 | 71.6 | 4.2 | Qwen3 |
| HumanEval | 87.5 | 87.0 | 0.5 | Nova Pro Max |
| MATH-500 | 83.8 | 86.5 | 2.7 | Qwen3 |
| AIME 2025 | 79.3 | 74.5 | 4.8 | Nova Pro Max |
| LiveCodeBench | 77.0 | 73.8 | 3.2 | Nova Pro Max |
| IFEval | 86.4 | 85.6 | 0.8 | Nova Pro Max |
| TruthfulQA | 83.4 | 80.4 | 3.0 | Nova Pro Max |
| HellaSwag | 88.9 | 88.1 | 0.8 | Nova Pro Max |
| MMMU | 77.2 | 76.7 | 0.5 | Nova Pro Max |
| Arena Elo | 1423.2 | 1420.9 | 2.3 | Nova Pro Max |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Nova Pro Max costs about $28.44 per million tokens and Qwen3 costs about $9.41. Qwen3 is roughly 67% cheaper than Nova Pro Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Nova Pro Max has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Qwen3. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Nova Pro Max wins 10, Qwen3 wins 2, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Nova Pro Max leads Qwen3 by 0.9 points (81.2 versus 80.3).
The price picture favours Qwen3. The context picture favours Nova Pro Max. 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 Nova Pro Max for quality-sensitive work and Qwen3 for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Nova Pro Max if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 16,384-token output limit.
Choose Qwen3 if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need open weights for self-hosting or fine-tuning.
FAQ
Is Nova Pro Max better than Qwen3?
On the index average, Nova Pro Max leads Qwen3 by 0.9 points (81.2 versus 80.3). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Nova Pro Max wins 10 benchmarks, Qwen3 wins 2.
Which is cheaper, Nova Pro Max or Qwen3?
Qwen3 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $9.41 per million tokens, versus $28.44 for Nova Pro Max.
Which has the larger context window?
Nova Pro Max has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Qwen3 has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Nova Pro Max is proprietary; Qwen3 is open weights.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Nova Pro Max for quality-sensitive work and Qwen3 for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.