Grok 4.6 (Medium) vs MiniMax-M3
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.6 (Medium) by SpaceXAI or MiniMax-M3 by MiniMax? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Grok 4.6 (Medium) scores 13.6 points higher (42.8 vs 29.2) but costs 2.9× as much to run the benchmark ($1557 vs $538; both premium class). Pick Grok 4.6 (Medium) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise MiniMax-M3.
| Metric | Grok 4.6 (Medium) | MiniMax-M3 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 42.8 | 29.2 | −31.8% MiniMax-M3 is 31.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,557.04 | $537.98 | −65.4% MiniMax-M3 is 65.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 31.37s | 25.47s | −18.8% MiniMax-M3 is 18.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $6.00 | $0.30 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
MiniMax-M3 vs Grok 4.6 (Medium): 31.8% less intelligence, 65.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 18.8% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.6 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- MiniMax-M3 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
Grok 4.6 (Medium)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/grok-4-6-medium/minimax-m3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-6-medium/minimax-m3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill