Noometry

Model comparison

MiniMax-M2.1 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M2.1 MiniMax

38.9

Rank #178 Confirmed

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning NVIDIA

40.0

Rank #155 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2.1 scores higher in 6 categories and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning in 2 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads 26.8 to 16.6.
  • Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.1.
  • Nemotron 3.5 Lightning accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 205K.

Side by side

MiniMax-M2.1Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
ProviderMiniMaxNVIDIA
Noometry Index38.940.0
Released2025-12-232026-08-11
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window205K262K
Max output131K262K
Input $ / M tokens$0.30$0.05
Output $ / M tokens$1.20$0.20
Results tracked2218

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Category by category

Coding Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.1: 40.4 (#143), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 40.4 (#141)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
LMArena Coding14211375
LMArena WebDev1384—
ALE-Bench623.83—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

MiniMax-M2.1: 27.9 (#98), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Terminal-Bench36.6%—

Reasoning Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 16.6 (#302), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 26.8 (#127)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
LMArena Hard Prompts14111337
NYT Connections (extended)11.2%—

Math Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#138), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#155)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
LMArena Math13971359

Knowledge Too close to call

MiniMax-M2.1: 38.3 (#147), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#154)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
LMArena Expert14311356
Vectara Hallucination Rate11.8%—

Multilingual MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 50.0 (#128), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#180)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
LMArena Non-English13781295
LMArena Chinese14301359
LMArena French14041366
LMArena German13811282
LMArena Japanese12871206
LMArena Korean12981238
LMArena Russian13871253
LMArena Spanish13971345

Instruction Following MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 73.8 (#112), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.6 (#170)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
LMArena Instruction Following14001318

Long Context MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 43.2 (#101), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#165)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
LMArena Longer Query14161314

Writing & Preference MiniMax-M2.1 leads

MiniMax-M2.1: 58.3 (#120), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#201)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2.1Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
LMArena Text13921327
LMArena Creative Writing13611254
LMArena Multi-Turn13961328
EQ-Bench Creative Writing—1280

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M2.1 better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2.1 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2.1 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

Is MiniMax-M2.1 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (40.4 vs 40.4); test both on your own repository before choosing.

Which has the bigger context window?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning does, with 262K tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks do MiniMax-M2.1 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2.1 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18.

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