Model comparison
Granite 4.2 3b vs MiniMax-M2.1
Granite 4.2 3b and MiniMax-M2.1 score almost the same on the Noometry Index (39.4 vs 38.9), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.
MiniMaxSummary
- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 3b scores higher in 1 category and MiniMax-M2.1 in 6 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where MiniMax-M2.1 leads 58.3 to 47.2.
Side by side
| Granite 4.2 3b | MiniMax-M2.1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 39.4 | 38.9 |
| Released | — | 2025-12-23 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | — | 205K |
| Max output | — | 131K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $1.20 |
| Results tracked | 11 | 22 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Granite 4.2 3b: 40.0 (#151), MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1361 | 1421 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1384 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 623.83 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Granite 4.2 3b: —, MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 36.6% |
Reasoning Granite 4.2 3b leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 26.0 (#138), MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1306 | 1411 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 11.2% |
Math Not comparable
Granite 4.2 3b: —, MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | — | 1397 |
Knowledge MiniMax-M2.1 leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 36.3 (#171), MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1315 | 1431 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 11.8% |
Multilingual MiniMax-M2.1 leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 42.1 (#198), MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1268 | 1378 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1269 | 1430 |
| LMArena Russian | 1249 | 1387 |
| LMArena French | — | 1404 |
| LMArena German | — | 1381 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1287 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1298 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1397 |
Instruction Following MiniMax-M2.1 leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 67.1 (#200), MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1273 | 1400 |
Long Context MiniMax-M2.1 leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 39.2 (#185), MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1291 | 1416 |
Writing & Preference MiniMax-M2.1 leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 47.2 (#212), MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | MiniMax-M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1293 | 1392 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1205 | 1361 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1290 | 1396 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.2 3b better than MiniMax-M2.1?
Granite 4.2 3b and MiniMax-M2.1 score almost the same on the Noometry Index (39.4 vs 38.9), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Is Granite 4.2 3b or MiniMax-M2.1 better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (40.0 vs 40.4); test both on your own repository before choosing.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 3b and MiniMax-M2.1 share?
11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 3b has 11 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.1 has 22.