# Granite 4.0 Micro vs MiniMax-M3

> MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 13× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-0-micro-vs-minimax-m3
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 3

## Summary

- They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.0 Micro scores higher in 0 categories and MiniMax-M3 in 5 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M3 leads 58.4 to 9.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 2.8% for Granite 4.0 Micro and 71.1% for MiniMax-M3.
- Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M3.
- MiniMax-M3 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.0 Micro | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 28.8 | 43.5 |
| Rank | 312 | 81 |
| Context | 131K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.017 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $0.11 | $1.20 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- MiniMax-M3: 41.5 (#111)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierCode | — | 14.7% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1482 |
| SciCode | — | 47.1% |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1470 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 640.02 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- MiniMax-M3: 22.5 (#121)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | — | 37.7% |
| OSWorld 2.0 | — | 4.6% |
| GBAEval | — | 0.9% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 2,158 |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 18.5 (#261)
- MiniMax-M3: 29.3 (#83)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 14% |
| SimpleBench | — | 45.8% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 65.1% |
| CritPt | — | 3.7% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1447 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 8% |
| DTBench | — | 78.9% |
| LMCA | — | 33.7% |
| Surface Evolver Bench | — | 55% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 147 |
| ForecastBench | — | 61.4 |

## Math

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 11.2 (#301)
- MiniMax-M3: 39.1 (#83)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 2.8% | 71.1% |
| ProofBench | — | 18% |
| Omni-MATH | 20.9% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1432 |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#299)
- MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#32)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 28.3% | 90.9% |
| MMLU-Pro | 39.5% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.7% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1462 |

## Multimodal

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- MiniMax-M3: 39.5 (#45)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1254 |
| LMArena Document | — | 1435 |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- MiniMax-M3: 53.2 (#70)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1420 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1465 |
| LMArena French | — | 1445 |
| LMArena German | — | 1424 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1381 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1372 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1430 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1431 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 70.0 (#164)
- MiniMax-M3: 75.7 (#56)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 84.9% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1433 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#68)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1445 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#212)
- MiniMax-M3: 62.3 (#79)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1433 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1405 |
| WildBench | 67% | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | — | 1150 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1441 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than MiniMax-M3?

MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 13× less per token, which makes it the better buy when MiniMax-M3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or MiniMax-M3?

Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M3 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

### Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M3 does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 Micro and MiniMax-M3 share?

3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 Micro has 8 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M3 has 41.