Noometry

Model comparison

Gemini 3 Flash Preview vs MiniMax-M2.1

Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 2.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3 Flash Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 22 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 3 Flash Preview Google

52.3

Rank #40 Confirmed

MiniMax-M2.1 MiniMax

38.9

Rank #178 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 22 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3 Flash Preview scores higher in 9 categories and MiniMax-M2.1 in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads 49.2 to 16.6.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is NYT Connections (extended): 83.1% for Gemini 3 Flash Preview and 11.2% for MiniMax-M2.1.
  • MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $3 for Gemini 3 Flash Preview.
  • Gemini 3 Flash Preview accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 205K.
  • MiniMax-M2.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M2.1
ProviderGoogleMiniMax
Noometry Index52.338.9
Released2025-12-172025-12-23
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M205K
Max output66K131K
Input $ / M tokens$0.50$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$3$1.20
Results tracked5922

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 50.9 (#42), MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena WebDev14391384
LMArena Coding14601421
ALE-Bench1,367623.83
SWE-bench Verified75.4%—
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)75.8%—
SWE-bench Multilingual72.7%—
GSO9.8%—
WeirdML61.6%—

Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 38.7 (#29), MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M2.1
Terminal-Bench64.3%36.6%
τ²-bench Airline82.5%—
τ²-bench Banking27.3%—
τ²-bench Retail76.8%—
τ²-bench Telecom91.2%—
DeepResearch Bench49.8%—
BALROG48.1%—
GDP.pdf10%—
LMArena Search1198—
Vending-Bench 23,635—

Reasoning Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 49.2 (#37), MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M2.1
NYT Connections (extended)83.1%11.2%
LMArena Hard Prompts14651411
ARC-AGI-233.6%—
SimpleBench61.1%—
ARC-AGI-184.7%—
Chess Puzzles40%—
Mystery Game Puzzles26%—
DTBench89.1%—
LMCA43.1%—
Epoch Capabilities Index151.8—
ForecastBench58.5—

Math Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 51.7 (#55), MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Math14731397
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)51.2%—
FrontierMath Tier 417.1%—
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions67.6%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202595.6%—
ProofBench15%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)35.6%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)4.2%—

Knowledge Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 58.8 (#33), MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M2.1
Vectara Hallucination Rate13.5%11.8%
LMArena Expert14621431
GPQA Diamond89.4%—
SimpleQA Verified66.8%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 45.5 (#16), MiniMax-M2.1: —

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Vision1285—
GeoBench88%—
VPCT72.6%—
Blueprint-Bench 20%—
LMArena Document1413—

Multilingual Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 55.7 (#27), MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Non-English14581378
LMArena Chinese15111430
LMArena French14771404
LMArena German14971381
LMArena Japanese14891287
LMArena Korean14431298
LMArena Russian14801387
LMArena Spanish14691397

Instruction Following Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 75.7 (#56), MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Instruction Following14371400

Long Context Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 44.4 (#67), MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Longer Query14521416

Writing & Preference Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 65.5 (#45), MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Text14661392
LMArena Creative Writing14571361
LMArena Multi-Turn14711396

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 3 Flash Preview better than MiniMax-M2.1?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 2.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3 Flash Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3 Flash Preview or MiniMax-M2.1?

MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Gemini 3 Flash Preview lists at $0.50 and $3.

Is Gemini 3 Flash Preview or MiniMax-M2.1 better for coding?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.9 versus 40.4 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview does, with 1.05M tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 3 Flash Preview and MiniMax-M2.1 share?

22 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3 Flash Preview has 59 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.1 has 22.

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