Noometry

Model comparison

MiniMax-M2 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 37.4 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 15 shared benchmarks.

MiniMax-M2 MiniMax

37.4

Rank #204 Confirmed

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning NVIDIA

40.0

Rank #155 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 15 benchmarks with published results for both. MiniMax-M2 scores higher in 4 categories and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads 26.8 to 19.4.
  • Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.
  • Nemotron 3.5 Lightning accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 205K.

Side by side

MiniMax-M2Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
ProviderMiniMaxNVIDIA
Noometry Index37.440.0
Released2025-10-272026-08-11
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window205K262K
Max output131K262K
Input $ / M tokens$0.30$0.05
Output $ / M tokens$1.20$0.20
Results tracked2118

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Category by category

Coding Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads

MiniMax-M2: 39.3 (#159), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 40.4 (#141)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
LMArena Coding13701375
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)61%—
LMArena WebDev1297—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

MiniMax-M2: 25.1 (#109), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Terminal-Bench30%—
Vending-Bench 2160.6—

Reasoning Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads

MiniMax-M2: 19.4 (#258), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 26.8 (#127)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
LMArena Hard Prompts13571337
Kagi LLM Benchmark57.8%—
NYT Connections (extended)14.8%—

Math Too close to call

MiniMax-M2: 37.3 (#160), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#155)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
LMArena Math13521359

Knowledge Too close to call

MiniMax-M2: 37.0 (#163), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#154)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
LMArena Expert13371356

Multilingual MiniMax-M2 leads

MiniMax-M2: 45.3 (#171), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#180)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
LMArena Non-English13131295
LMArena Chinese13661359
LMArena French13351366
LMArena German13551282
LMArena Russian13311253
LMArena Spanish13261345
LMArena Japanese—1206
LMArena Korean—1238

Instruction Following Too close to call

MiniMax-M2: 70.2 (#166), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.6 (#170)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
LMArena Instruction Following13281318

Long Context Too close to call

MiniMax-M2: 40.5 (#153), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#165)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
LMArena Longer Query13311314

Writing & Preference MiniMax-M2 leads

MiniMax-M2: 53.0 (#162), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#201)

BenchmarkMiniMax-M2Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
LMArena Text13401327
LMArena Creative Writing12861254
LMArena Multi-Turn13611328
EQ-Bench Creative Writing—1280

Frequently asked questions

Is MiniMax-M2 better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 37.4 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, MiniMax-M2 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 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

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

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 39.3 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

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

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

15 benchmarks have published results for both models. MiniMax-M2 has 21 scored results on Noometry and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18.

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