Model comparison

GPT-5 vs MiniMax-M2.1

GPT-5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.9 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 6.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 21 shared benchmarks.

GPT-5 OpenAI

50.9

Rank #45 Confirmed

MiniMax-M2.1 MiniMax

38.9

Rank #178 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5 scores higher in 8 categories and MiniMax-M2.1 in 1 category; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in long context, where GPT-5 leads 69.5 to 43.2.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench: 49.6% for GPT-5 and 36.6% for MiniMax-M2.1.
  • MiniMax-M2.1 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.25 / $10 for GPT-5.
  • GPT-5 accepts more context: 400K tokens versus 205K.
  • MiniMax-M2.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-5 and MiniMax-M2.1 specifications
GPT-5MiniMax-M2.1
ProviderOpenAIMiniMax
Noometry Index50.938.9
Released2025-08-072025-12-23
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window400K205K
Max output128K131K
Input $ / M tokens$1.25$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$10$1.20
Results tracked6922

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Category by category

Coding GPT-5 leads

GPT-5: 50.3 (#47), MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena WebDev14181384
LMArena Coding14361421
ALE-Bench1,162623.83
SWE-bench Verified73.6%—
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)65%—
Aider Polyglot88%—
SciCode42.9%—
GSO6.9%—
WeirdML60.7%—
AlgoTune1.67—

Agentic & Tool Use GPT-5 leads

GPT-5: 33.1 (#56), MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5MiniMax-M2.1
Terminal-Bench49.6%36.6%
GDPval34.8%—
Remote Labor Index1.7%—
DeepResearch Bench49.6%—
BALROG32.8%—
LMArena Search1133—
METR Time Horizons69.6%—

Reasoning GPT-5 leads

GPT-5: 38.3 (#64), MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Hard Prompts14161411
ARC-AGI-29.9%—
SimpleBench56.7%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark72.7%—
NYT Connections (extended)—11.2%
ARC-AGI-165.7%—
CritPt12.6%—
Chess Puzzles37%—
EnigmaEval10.5%—
EBR-Bench12.7%—
Mystery Game Puzzles23%—
DTBench90.7%—
LMCA40%—
Epoch Capabilities Index150—
ForecastBench61.4—

Math GPT-5 leads

GPT-5: 55.0 (#44), MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Math14071397
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)55.4%—
FrontierMath Tier 422%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202591.4%—
ProofBench18%—
Omni-MATH64.7%—
MATH Level 598.1%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)32.4%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)12.5%—

Knowledge GPT-5 leads

GPT-5: 56.6 (#43), MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5MiniMax-M2.1
Vectara Hallucination Rate14.7%11.8%
LMArena Expert14191431
GPQA Diamond86.2%—
Humanity's Last Exam25.3%—
SimpleQA Verified50.1%—
MMLU-Pro86.3%—
Confabulations10.3%—
GPQA (HELM)79.2%—

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-5: 46.8 (#13), MiniMax-M2.1: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Vision1232—
GeoBench81%—
VPCT66%—

Multilingual GPT-5 leads

GPT-5: 51.4 (#110), MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Non-English13971378
LMArena Chinese14221430
LMArena French14101404
LMArena German14161381
LMArena Japanese14091287
LMArena Korean13601298
LMArena Russian14061387
LMArena Spanish13991397

Instruction Following Too close to call

GPT-5: 73.8 (#113), MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Instruction Following13881400
IFEval87.5%—

Long Context GPT-5 leads

GPT-5: 69.5 (#2), MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Longer Query13991416
Fiction.LiveBench97.2%—

Writing & Preference GPT-5 leads

GPT-5: 63.4 (#65), MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5MiniMax-M2.1
LMArena Text14061392
LMArena Creative Writing13651361
LMArena Multi-Turn14261396
Short-Story Creative Writing86%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1627—
WildBench85.7%—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-5 better than MiniMax-M2.1?

GPT-5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.9 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2.1 costs 6.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, GPT-5 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; GPT-5 lists at $1.25 and $10.

Is GPT-5 or MiniMax-M2.1 better for coding?

GPT-5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.3 versus 40.4 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-5 does, with 400K tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks do GPT-5 and MiniMax-M2.1 share?

21 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5 has 69 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.1 has 22.

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