Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) vs MiniMax-M3.1-Flash
Which is better for the money: Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) by Google or MiniMax-M3.1-Flash by MiniMax? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-03.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) scores 28.8 points higher (57.7 vs 28.9) but costs 16× as much to run the benchmark ($5903 vs $358; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) when you need intelligence above 28.9, and MiniMax-M3.1-Flash when 28.9 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.7 | 28.9 | −49.9% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 49.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,903.03 | $358.06 | −93.9% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 93.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.62s | 19.58s | +68.5% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 68.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.15 / $0.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image |
MiniMax-M3.1-Flash vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium): 49.9% less intelligence, 93.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 68.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Terra (High) scores 42.30 for $267.
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)MiniMax-M3.1-FlashToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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