Model comparison
Gemini 3 Flash Preview vs MiniMax-M2
Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 36.9 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2 costs 2.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3 Flash Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 20 shared benchmarks.
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MiniMaxSummary
- They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3 Flash Preview scores higher in 9 categories and MiniMax-M2 in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads 49.2 to 18.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is NYT Connections (extended): 83.1% for Gemini 3 Flash Preview and 14.8% for MiniMax-M2.
- MiniMax-M2 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $3 for Gemini 3 Flash Preview.
- Gemini 3 Flash Preview accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 205K.
- MiniMax-M2 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax-M2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | MiniMax | |
| Noometry Index | 52.3 | 36.9 |
| Released | 2025-12-17 | 2025-10-27 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1.05M | 205K |
| Max output | 66K | 131K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.50 | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $3 | $1.20 |
| Results tracked | 59 | 21 |
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Category by category
Coding Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads
Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 51.5 (#35), MiniMax-M2: 39.1 (#151)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 75.8% | 61% |
| LMArena WebDev | 1439 | 1297 |
| LMArena Coding | 1460 | 1370 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 75.4% | — |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 72.7% | — |
| GSO | 9.8% | — |
| WeirdML | 61.6% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,367 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads
Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 38.6 (#27), MiniMax-M2: 24.9 (#102)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 64.3% | 30% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 3,635 | 160.6 |
| τ²-bench Airline | 82.5% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 27.3% | — |
| τ²-bench Retail | 76.8% | — |
| τ²-bench Telecom | 91.2% | — |
| DeepResearch Bench | 49.8% | — |
| BALROG | 48.1% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 10% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1198 | — |
Reasoning Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads
Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 49.2 (#35), MiniMax-M2: 18.6 (#256)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Connections (extended) | 83.1% | 14.8% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1465 | 1357 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 33.6% | — |
| SimpleBench | 61.1% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 57.8% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 84.7% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 40% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 26% | — |
| DTBench | 89.1% | — |
| LMCA | 43.1% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 151.83 | — |
| ForecastBench | 58.5 | — |
Math Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads
Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 51.4 (#42), MiniMax-M2: 34.6 (#158)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1472 | 1350 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 51.2% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 17.1% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 67.6% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 95.6% | — |
| ProofBench | 15% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 35.6% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 4.2% | — |
Knowledge Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads
Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 58.8 (#30), MiniMax-M2: 36.3 (#160)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1461 | 1336 |
| GPQA Diamond | 89.4% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 66.8% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 13.5% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 45.3 (#15), MiniMax-M2: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1285 | — |
| GeoBench | 88% | — |
| VPCT | 72.6% | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 0% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1413 | — |
Multilingual Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads
Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 55.9 (#26), MiniMax-M2: 45.6 (#165)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1458 | 1314 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1510 | 1367 |
| LMArena French | 1478 | 1336 |
| LMArena German | 1497 | 1366 |
| LMArena Russian | 1480 | 1332 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1470 | 1326 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1488 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1443 | — |
Instruction Following Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads
Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 75.8 (#52), MiniMax-M2: 70.4 (#160)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1437 | 1329 |
Long Context Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads
Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 44.4 (#63), MiniMax-M2: 40.5 (#148)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1452 | 1332 |
Writing & Preference Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads
Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 65.6 (#44), MiniMax-M2: 53.3 (#157)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | MiniMax-M2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1466 | 1340 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1457 | 1288 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1471 | 1362 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemini 3 Flash Preview better than MiniMax-M2?
Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 36.9 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M2 costs 2.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3 Flash Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3 Flash Preview or MiniMax-M2?
MiniMax-M2 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Gemini 3 Flash Preview lists at $0.50 and $3.
Is Gemini 3 Flash Preview or MiniMax-M2 better for coding?
Gemini 3 Flash Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 51.5 versus 39.1 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Gemini 3 Flash Preview does, with 1.05M tokens against 205K.
How many benchmarks do Gemini 3 Flash Preview and MiniMax-M2 share?
20 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3 Flash Preview has 59 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2 has 21.