Gemini 4 Argon vs MiniMax M3.1 Flash
Gemini 4 Argon leads MiniMax M3.1 Flash on coding, 81.0 to 59.0 on the Vibe Coding Index, and MiniMax M3.1 Flash costs 16.7x less per output token ($0.60 vs $10.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 20 benchmarks have a result for both.
Gemini 4 Argon or MiniMax M3.1 Flash: which to pick
Pick Gemini 4 Argon for coding: it scores 81.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 59.0 for MiniMax M3.1 Flash.
Pick MiniMax M3.1 Flash for output tokens 16.7x cheaper ($0.60 vs $10.00 per million) and work measured by LiveBench design, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 20
- Gemini 4 Argon only
- 80
- MiniMax M3.1 Flash only
- 0
- 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
Gemini 4 Argon
Gemini 4 Argon scores 81.0 against 59.0.
5 and 4 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Gemini 4 Argon
Gemini 4 Argon leads, 52.6 against 42.7.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a Design Arena: websites result, 1316.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
Gemini 4 Argon
Gemini 4 Argon leads, 69.2% against 53.8%.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Gemini 4 Argon
Gemini 4 Argon takes 1.05M tokens against 1M.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
MiniMax M3.1 Flash
Gemini 4 Argon $0.0070, MiniMax M3.1 Flash $0.0004 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Gemini 4 Argon 81.0 from 5 benchmarks, MiniMax M3.1 Flash 59.0 from 4 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 16.4 points apart on average over 6 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI): Gemini 4 Argon 57.6% against MiniMax M3.1 Flash 25.3%, 43.1 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Gemini 4 Argon $10.00 against MiniMax M3.1 Flash $0.60 per million output tokens, 16.7x apart.
- Context window
- Gemini 4 Argon takes 1.05M tokens, MiniMax M3.1 Flash 1M.
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 M3.1 Flash | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 7 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 5 | 0 | 1 tie | |
| Reasoning | 2 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 0 | 1 | ||
| General | 2 | 0 | 1 tie | |
| All shared boards | 17 | 1 | 2 ties |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index70
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 89.7% | 83.9% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena WebDev | 1678 | 1587 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 57.6% | 25.3% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 91.9% | 73.9% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| 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 |
| SciCode | 61.8% | 53.4% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| 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 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| 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 | 1609 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1643 | 1529 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| SciCode | 12.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SWE-Bench Pro V2 | 99.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 21 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 52.6 | 42.7 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 166.4 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index50
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1171 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench research | 83.1% | 72.7% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LiveBench browser | 92.0% | 92.0% | Tie |
| LiveBench long agentic | 69.9% | 34.7% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| 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% | 32.1% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 54.8% | 34.1% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | 27.1% | 7.5% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| 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 |
| 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 24 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench reasoning | 95.1% | 82.9% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | 45.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 57.1% | 48.0% | 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 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Scale run) | 53.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| MathArena | 69.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 88.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 58.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon 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 |
| PRBench Finance | 49.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| PRBench Legal | 49.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1316 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1333 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1377 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1332 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1389 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1329 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench design | 73.7% | 74.0% | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | 69.2% | 53.8% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| LiveBench data analysis | 85.2% | 71.4% | Gemini 4 Argon |
| 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% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 79.7% | 79.7% | Tie |
| 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 |
| MultiChallenge | 78.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 26 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | 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 M3.1 Flash costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
MiniMax M3.1 Flash costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
MiniMax M3.1 Flash 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 M3.1 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | MiniMax | |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | October 13, 2026 | October 19, 2026 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $0.15 |
| Output $/Mtok | $10.00 | $0.60 |
| Coding index | 81.0 | 59.0 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 5 | 4 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Gemini 4 Argon better than MiniMax M3.1 Flash for coding?
Pick Gemini 4 Argon for coding: it scores 81.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 59.0 for MiniMax M3.1 Flash. Pick MiniMax M3.1 Flash for output tokens 16.7x cheaper ($0.60 vs $10.00 per million) and work measured by LiveBench design, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 4 Argon or MiniMax M3.1 Flash?
Gemini 4 Argon costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens; MiniMax M3.1 Flash costs $0.15 and $0.60. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Gemini 4 Argon or MiniMax M3.1 Flash?
Gemini 4 Argon, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.
How many benchmarks is the Gemini 4 Argon vs MiniMax M3.1 Flash comparison based on?
20 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 M3.1 Flash's on 4. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.