Noometry

Model comparison

Gemini 3.6 Flash vs MiniMax M1

Gemini 3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 40.3 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax M1 costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 3.6 Flash Google

54.1

Rank #33 Confirmed

MiniMax M1 MiniMax

40.3

Rank #150 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.6 Flash scores higher in 8 categories and MiniMax M1 in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3.6 Flash leads 58.8 to 26.9.
  • MiniMax M1 is cheaper at $0.55 / $2.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.75 / $3.75 for Gemini 3.6 Flash.
  • Gemini 3.6 Flash accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 1M.
  • MiniMax M1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemini 3.6 FlashMiniMax M1
ProviderGoogleMiniMax
Noometry Index54.140.3
Released2026-07-212025-06-13
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M1M
Max output66K40K
Input $ / M tokens$0.75$0.55
Output $ / M tokens$3.75$2.20
Results tracked4618

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 50.0 (#48), MiniMax M1: 39.9 (#153)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashMiniMax M1
LMArena Coding14911359
DeepSWE46.7%—
FrontierCode34.4%—
LMArena WebDev1538—
SciCode52.7%—
WeirdML56.1%—
ALE-Bench715.52—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 32.3 (#65), MiniMax M1: —

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashMiniMax M1
APEX-Agents46.9%—
GDP.pdf14%—

Reasoning Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 58.8 (#22), MiniMax M1: 26.9 (#126)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashMiniMax M1
LMArena Hard Prompts14851339
ARC-AGI-260.4%—
NYT Connections (extended)89%—
ARC-AGI-191.2%—
CritPt10.6%—
Chess Puzzles43%—
Mystery Game Puzzles30%—
DTBench95.5%—
LMCA44.9%—
Epoch Capabilities Index154.25—

Math Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 57.3 (#40), MiniMax M1: 37.5 (#151)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashMiniMax M1
LMArena Math15051361
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)58.9%—
FrontierMath Tier 422%—
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions70.8%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202594.2%—
ProofBench36%—

Knowledge Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 67.8 (#8), MiniMax M1: 36.4 (#170)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashMiniMax M1
LMArena Expert14881317
GPQA Diamond94.1%—
SimpleQA Verified66.2%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 38.5 (#64), MiniMax M1: —

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashMiniMax M1
LMArena Vision1298—
Blueprint-Bench 231.2%—
Furniture Assembly23.3%—
LMArena Document1456—

Multilingual Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 56.5 (#19), MiniMax M1: 45.8 (#163)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashMiniMax M1
LMArena Non-English14691319
LMArena Chinese15311360
LMArena French15041370
LMArena German14781350
LMArena Japanese14761217
LMArena Korean14311266
LMArena Russian14871329
LMArena Spanish14751353

Instruction Following Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 77.0 (#33), MiniMax M1: 69.3 (#174)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashMiniMax M1
LMArena Instruction Following14661312

Long Context Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 45.1 (#50), MiniMax M1: 41.4 (#141)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashMiniMax M1
LMArena Longer Query14741326
Fiction.LiveBench—69.4%

Writing & Preference Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 68.2 (#27), MiniMax M1: 53.1 (#161)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashMiniMax M1
LMArena Text14791343
LMArena Creative Writing14651298
LMArena Multi-Turn14811335
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1604—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 3.6 Flash better than MiniMax M1?

Gemini 3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 40.3 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax M1 costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.6 Flash or MiniMax M1?

MiniMax M1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.55 per million input tokens and $2.20 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.6 Flash lists at $0.75 and $3.75.

Is Gemini 3.6 Flash or MiniMax M1 better for coding?

Gemini 3.6 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.0 versus 39.9 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3.6 Flash does, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.6 Flash and MiniMax M1 share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.6 Flash has 46 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax M1 has 18.

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