MiniMax-M3.1-Flash vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Which is better for the money: MiniMax-M3.1-Flash by MiniMax or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning by NVIDIA? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
MiniMax-M3.1-Flash scores 29.8 points higher (42.7 vs 12.9) but costs 3.1× as much to run the benchmark ($283 vs $92.8; both mid-range class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick MiniMax-M3.1-Flash when you need intelligence above 12.9, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning when 12.9 is enough.
| Metric | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 42.7 | 12.9 | −69.8% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 69.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $283.18 | $92.76 | −67.2% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 67.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 22.73s | 8.97s | −60.5% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 60.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.15 / $0.60 | $0.06 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs MiniMax-M3.1-Flash: 69.8% less intelligence, 67.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 60.5% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) scores 34.60 for $66.8.
MiniMax-M3.1-FlashNemotron 3.5 LightningToday'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/minimax-m3-1-flash/nemotron-3-5-lightning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/minimax-m3-1-flash/nemotron-3-5-lightning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill