Gemini 4 Argon vs MiniMax M2.1
Gemini 4 Argon leads MiniMax M2.1 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 52.6 to 20.9, and MiniMax M2.1 costs 8.3x less per output token ($1.20 vs $10.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 13 benchmarks have a result for both.
Gemini 4 Argon or MiniMax M2.1: which to pick
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a coding score, 81.0 on the Vibe Coding Index; MiniMax M2.1 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick MiniMax M2.1 for output tokens 8.3x cheaper ($1.20 vs $10.00 per million).
- Shared results
- 13
- Gemini 4 Argon only
- 81
- MiniMax M2.1 only
- 21
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Gemini 4 Argon
Gemini 4 Argon leads, 52.6 against 20.9.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only MiniMax M2.1 has a GPQA Diamond result, 78.5%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only MiniMax M2.1 has a AIME result, 77.9%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only MiniMax M2.1 has a MMLU Pro result, 87.0%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Gemini 4 Argon
Gemini 4 Argon leads, 1316 against 1201.
Same board, both measured
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a Vals Index result, 69.2%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Gemini 4 Argon
Gemini 4 Argon takes 1.05M tokens against 205K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
MiniMax M2.1
Gemini 4 Argon $0.0070, MiniMax M2.1 $0.0009 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only MiniMax M2.1 has the number, $0.59.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Gemini 4 Argon 81.0 from 5 benchmarks, MiniMax M2.1 not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Coding, 49.2 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- ALE-Bench: Gemini 4 Argon 2100.1 against MiniMax M2.1 623.8, 49.2 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Gemini 4 Argon $10.00 against MiniMax M2.1 $1.20 per million output tokens, 8.3x apart.
- Context window
- Gemini 4 Argon takes 1.05M tokens, MiniMax M2.1 205K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Gemini 4 Argon | Bars | MiniMax M2.1 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 1 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 1 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 2 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 6 | 0 | ||
| General | 2 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 13 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index10
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 89.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1678 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 81.8% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 74.8% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 57.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 91.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 68.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 2.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 57.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | 56.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | 21.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 77.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 81.0% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| SciCode | 61.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 28.8% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| Terminal-Bench | Not measured | 36.6% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| FrontierCode | 47.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| FrontierSWE | 55.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MirrorCode | 58.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ALE-Bench | 2100.1 | 623.8 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1546 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1556 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1692 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1643 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SciCode | 12.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 52.6 | 20.9 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 166.4 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index19 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1173 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench research | 83.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench browser | 92.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 69.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | 44.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 65.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 44.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 54.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | 27.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 75.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | 76.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 44.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Vals Science Index | 55.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Time Horizon Index (Vals AI) | 52.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| CUA-bench (Vals AI) | 4.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Robo-bench (Vals AI) | 0.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 85.4% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| APEX-Agents | 82.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $13,718 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 22 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 78.5% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| LiveBench reasoning | 95.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | 45.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 83.0% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 57.1% | 23.2% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 96.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ARC-AGI | 98.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 91.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Chess puzzles | 59.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 64.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| EBR-bench | 64.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1546 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1550 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1548 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | Not measured | 77.9% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 89.0% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | Not measured | 87.8% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 82.7 | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 82.7% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 86.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 78.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ProofBench | 99.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1536 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1557 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 87.0% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 88.3% | 75.5% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | Not measured | 55.8% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 58.9% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 66.3% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | Not measured | 91.2% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 58.8% | 34.1% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 87.5% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 76.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1548 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1555 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1548 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1525 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index60
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1316 | 1201 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1333 | 1220 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1376 | 1134 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1331 | 1207 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1389 | 1164 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1329 | 1190 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Design Arena: SVG | Not measured | 1131 | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| LiveBench design | 73.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | 69.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | 85.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 69.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 53.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 87.4% | 80.8% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| IFBench | Not measured | 69.9% | Only MiniMax M2.1 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 79.7% | 67.7% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| DTBench | 97.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMCA | 63.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Furniture assembly | 72.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text | 1532 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1534 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1527 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1538 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1522 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1611 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1503 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1534 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1556 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1547 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1529 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1527 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 24 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
MiniMax M2.1 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
MiniMax M2.1 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
MiniMax M2.1 costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Google Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | MiniMax | |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | October 13, 2026 | December 23, 2025 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 205K |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $0.30 |
| Output $/Mtok | $10.00 | $1.20 |
| Coding index | 81.0 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 5 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $0.59 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Gemini 4 Argon better than MiniMax M2.1 for coding?
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a coding score, 81.0 on the Vibe Coding Index; MiniMax M2.1 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick MiniMax M2.1 for output tokens 8.3x cheaper ($1.20 vs $10.00 per million).
Which is cheaper, Gemini 4 Argon or MiniMax M2.1?
Gemini 4 Argon costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens; MiniMax M2.1 costs $0.30 and $1.20. Cost per solved task is known for MiniMax M2.1 only.
Which has the bigger context window, Gemini 4 Argon or MiniMax M2.1?
Gemini 4 Argon, with 1.05M tokens against 205K.
How many benchmarks is the Gemini 4 Argon vs MiniMax M2.1 comparison based on?
13 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Gemini 4 Argon's coding index rests on 5 independent benchmarks and MiniMax M2.1's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.