Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) vs MiniMax-M3
Which is better for the money: Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) by Google or MiniMax-M3 by MiniMax? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-04.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) scores 35.3 points higher (54.2 vs 18.9) but costs 6.5× as much to run the benchmark ($5725 vs $878; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) when you need intelligence above 18.9, and MiniMax-M3 when 18.9 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) | MiniMax-M3 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 54.2 | 18.9 | −65.1% MiniMax-M3 is 65.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,725.02 | $878.03 | −84.7% MiniMax-M3 is 84.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 16.28s | 26.37s | +62.0% MiniMax-M3 is 62.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.30 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image, Video |
MiniMax-M3 vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Low): 65.1% less intelligence, 84.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 62.0% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 57.40 for $4766.
- MiniMax-M3 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 52.50 for $718.
Gemini 4 Carbon (Low)MiniMax-M3Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/gemini-4-carbon-low/minimax-m3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemini-4-carbon-low/minimax-m3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill