Noometry

Model comparison

Gemini 3 Flash Preview vs MiniMax-M3

Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 43.8 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M3 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 . 33 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 3 Flash Preview Google

52.3

Rank #40 Confirmed

MiniMax-M3 MiniMax

43.8

Rank #85 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 33 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3 Flash Preview scores higher in 10 categories and MiniMax-M3 in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads 49.2 to 30.1.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Chess Puzzles: 40% for Gemini 3 Flash Preview and 14% for MiniMax-M3.
  • MiniMax-M3 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 1M.
  • MiniMax-M3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M3
ProviderGoogleMiniMax
Noometry Index52.343.8
Released2025-12-172026-06-01
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M1M
Max output66K512K
Input $ / M tokens$0.50$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$3$1.20
Results tracked5941

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 50.9 (#42), MiniMax-M3: 41.8 (#118)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M3
LMArena WebDev14391482
LMArena Coding14601469
ALE-Bench1,367640.02
SWE-bench Verified75.4%—
FrontierCode—14.7%
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)75.8%—
SWE-bench Multilingual72.7%—
SciCode—47.1%
GSO9.8%—
WeirdML61.6%—

Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 38.7 (#29), MiniMax-M3: 22.6 (#130)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M3
Vending-Bench 23,6352,158
Terminal-Bench64.3%—
APEX-Agents—37.7%
OSWorld 2.0—4.6%
τ²-bench Airline82.5%—
τ²-bench Banking27.3%—
τ²-bench Retail76.8%—
τ²-bench Telecom91.2%—
DeepResearch Bench49.8%—
BALROG48.1%—
GBAEval—0.9%
GDP.pdf10%—
LMArena Search1198—

Reasoning Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 49.2 (#37), MiniMax-M3: 30.1 (#87)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M3
SimpleBench61.1%45.8%
NYT Connections (extended)83.1%65.1%
Chess Puzzles40%14%
LMArena Hard Prompts14651447
Mystery Game Puzzles26%8%
DTBench89.1%78.9%
LMCA43.1%33.7%
Epoch Capabilities Index151.8146.95
ForecastBench58.561.4
ARC-AGI-233.6%—
ARC-AGI-184.7%—
CritPt—3.7%
Surface Evolver Bench—55%

Math Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 51.7 (#55), MiniMax-M3: 40.0 (#95)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M3
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202595.6%71.1%
ProofBench15%18%
LMArena Math14731429
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)51.2%—
FrontierMath Tier 417.1%—
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions67.6%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)35.6%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)4.2%—

Knowledge Too close to call

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 58.8 (#33), MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#35)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M3
GPQA Diamond89.4%90.9%
LMArena Expert14621461
SimpleQA Verified66.8%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate13.5%—

Multimodal Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 45.5 (#16), MiniMax-M3: 40.2 (#51)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M3
LMArena Vision12851253
LMArena Document14131435
GeoBench88%—
VPCT72.6%—
Blueprint-Bench 20%—

Multilingual Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 55.7 (#27), MiniMax-M3: 53.0 (#75)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M3
LMArena Non-English14581420
LMArena Chinese15111463
LMArena French14771447
LMArena German14971426
LMArena Japanese14891381
LMArena Korean14431372
LMArena Russian14801428
LMArena Spanish14691432

Instruction Following Too close to call

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 75.7 (#56), MiniMax-M3: 75.5 (#62)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M3
LMArena Instruction Following14371433

Long Context Too close to call

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 44.4 (#67), MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#72)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M3
LMArena Longer Query14521445

Writing & Preference Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 65.5 (#45), MiniMax-M3: 62.1 (#83)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMiniMax-M3
LMArena Text14661433
LMArena Creative Writing14571404
LMArena Multi-Turn14711442
EQ-Bench 4—1150

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 3 Flash Preview better than MiniMax-M3?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 43.8 on the Noometry Index. MiniMax-M3 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-M3?

MiniMax-M3 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-M3 better for coding?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.9 versus 41.8 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview does, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 3 Flash Preview and MiniMax-M3 share?

33 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3 Flash Preview has 59 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M3 has 41.

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