GPT-6 Astra vs MiniMax-M3.1-Flash
Full profiles: GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI) and MiniMax-M3.1-Flash (MiniMax): every benchmark, price and rank.
Updated · Data from 10 sources
As of 21 Oct 2026, GPT-6 Astra (max) leads on quality (70.5 vs 61.9 on the BenchLeader Index), but MiniMax-M3.1-Flash costs 76× less, so it is the better buy unless you need the extra quality. Pick GPT-6 Astra for coding (74 vs 63); pick MiniMax-M3.1-Flash for reasoning (78 vs 76).
GPT-6 Astra benchmarks 
MiniMax-M3.1-Flash benchmarks Which to pick for…
The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.
| Use case | Pick | Why | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | GPT-6 Astra | 74 vs 63 category score; Arena WebDev 1774 vs 1588 | High |
| Reasoning | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash | 78 vs 76 category score; CritPt 22.3% vs 31.7% | Medium |
| Knowledge | GPT-6 Astra | 79 vs 69 category score; AA-Omniscience 43.4 vs 15.6 | High |
| Long documents | Either | 65 vs 65 category score; AA-LCR 80.7% vs 79.7% | Either |
| Images and other media | GPT-6 Astra | 66 vs 62 category score; MMMU-Pro 86.9% vs 79.1% | Medium |
| Chat quality (human preference) | – | Only GPT-6 Astra has an Arena rating (67 category score) | Not comparable |
| Lowest cost | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash | $0.262 vs $20.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.011 vs $0.800 | – |
| Fastest first answer | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash | 228.2 s (GPT-6 Astra (max)) vs 20.5 s (MiniMax-M3.1-Flash) to the first answer token | – |
| High volume on a budget | Neither flagship | A smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs | – |
Key differences
- GPT-6 Astra (max) leads on quality: 70.5 vs 61.9.
- GPT-6 Astra (max) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, composite, human preference, knowledge, long context, maths, multimodal.
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is stronger in reasoning.
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 76× cheaper ($0.262 vs $20.00 per 1M blended).
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash streams 1.7× faster (105 vs 62 tokens per second).
At a glance
| Spec | GPT-6 Astra | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | OpenAI | MiniMax |
| Released | 2 Sept 2026 | 19 Oct 2026 |
| Context window (tokens) | 1,050,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Compared at | GPT-6 Astra (max) | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash |
| Open weights | No | No |
| Price in / out / cached input per 1M | $10.00 / $50.00 / $1.00 | $0.150 / $0.600 / $0.015 |
Category by category
Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.
| Category | GPT-6 Astra (max) | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reasoning | 76.2 | 77.6 | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash |
| Coding | 74.0 | 62.5 | GPT-6 Astra |
| Agents & tools | 64.7 | – | not comparable |
| Maths | 71.9 | – | not comparable |
| Knowledge | 79.4 | 68.5 | GPT-6 Astra |
| Human preference | 66.6 | – | not comparable |
| Multimodal | 66.1 | 62.2 | GPT-6 Astra |
| Long context | 65.4 | 64.9 | level |
| Composite | 88.6 | 66.5 | GPT-6 Astra |
Where sources disagree
Across the 21 benchmarks both have, GPT-6 Astra leads 18, MiniMax-M3.1-Flash leads 3. Every overall index that rates both puts GPT-6 Astra ahead.
| Overall index | GPT-6 Astra (max) | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | 70.5 | 61.9 | GPT-6 Astra |
| AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2 | 52.7 | 42.7 | GPT-6 Astra |
| Vals Index | 65.0 | 53.8 | GPT-6 Astra |
Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).
Price, speed and latency
List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page; suite cost is what Artificial Analysis paid to run its whole Intelligence Index.
| Measure | GPT-6 Astra (max) | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Blended price per 1M tokens | $20.00 | $0.262 |
| Input / output per 1M | $10.00 / $50.00 | $0.150 / $0.600 |
| Cached input per 1M | $1.00 | $0.015 |
| Price per task: chat reply | $0.019 | $0.0002 |
| Price per task: summarize a 30-page report | $0.150 | $0.0022 |
| Price per task: code edit | $0.135 | $0.0018 |
| Price per task: agentic coding session | $0.800 | $0.011 |
| Price per task: structured extraction | $0.030 | $0.0004 |
| Cost to run a full benchmark suite | $3.26 | $0.220 |
| Output speed | 62 tok/s | 105 tok/s |
| Time to first answer | 228.2 s | 20.5 s |
| Time to a complete answer | 236.3 s | 25.3 s |
Per token is not per task: on Artificial Analysis' full suite GPT-6 Astra (max) cost $3.26 and MiniMax-M3.1-Flash $0.220, because MiniMax-M3.1-Flash used about 5.2× as many tokens for the same work, which a per-token price hides.
Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. GPT-6 Astra (max) scores 70.5 and takes 228 s to its first answer token; GPT-6 Astra (high) scores 69.6 in 36 s, GPT-6 Astra (xhigh) scores 69.0 in 122 s. MiniMax-M3.1-Flash scores 61.9 and takes 20 s to its first answer token. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.
Every benchmark
121 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.
| Metric | Publisher | GPT-6 Astra (max) | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash |
|---|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | BenchLeader | 70.5 | 61.9 |
| Agents & tools score | BenchLeader | 64.7 | – |
| Coding score | BenchLeader | 74.0 | 62.5 |
| Composite score | BenchLeader | 88.6 | 66.5 |
| Human preference score | BenchLeader | 66.6 | – |
| Knowledge score | BenchLeader | 79.4 | 68.5 |
| Long context score | BenchLeader | 65.4 | 64.9 |
| Maths score | BenchLeader | 71.9 | – |
| Multimodal score | BenchLeader | 66.1 | 62.2 |
| Reasoning score | BenchLeader | 76.2 | 77.6 |
| Blended price $/M | BenchLeader | $20.00 | $0.262 |
| Output speed | BenchLeader | 62 tok/s | 105 tok/s |
| Time to first answer | BenchLeader | 228.2 s | 20.5 s |
| Context window | BenchLeader | 1,050,000 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Reasoning | |||
| GPQA Diamond | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 95.8% | – |
| Humanity's Last Exam | Scale AI / CAIS | 54.8%† | – |
| Arena Hard Prompts | Arena (LMArena) | 1501 | – |
| LiveBench 2.0 Reasoning | LiveBench | 92.7%† | 82.9% |
| LiveBench 1.0 Reasoning | LiveBench | 92.7% | – |
| GPQA Diamond (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 96.1% | – |
| Humanity's Last Exam (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 54.7% | 48.0% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | ARC Prize | 97.5% | – |
| ARC-AGI-2 | ARC Prize | 95.0% | – |
| ARC-AGI-3 | ARC Prize | 98.6% | – |
| CritPt | Artificial Analysis | 31.7% | 22.3% |
| MysteryMechanism | Vals AI | 53.1% | – |
| Chess Puzzles | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 74.0% | – |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 84.0% | – |
| LMCA | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 64.1%† | – |
| DTBench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 97.1%† | – |
| BTF-3 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 13.5%† | – |
| Coding | |||
| SciCode | SciCode | 56.5% | – |
| WeirdML | WeirdML | 93.3% | – |
| FrontierCode | Cognition | 53.3% | – |
| GSO-Bench | GSO-Bench | 79.4%† | – |
| Arena Coding | Arena (LMArena) | 1543 | – |
| Arena WebDev | Arena (LMArena) | 1774 | 1588 |
| LiveBench 2.0 Coding | LiveBench | 93.7%† | 83.9% |
| LiveBench 1.0 Coding | LiveBench | 80.4% | – |
Show all 121 benchmarks
| Metric | Publisher | GPT-6 Astra (max) | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | |||
| SciCode (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 56.5% | 53.4% |
| IOI | Vals AI | 100.0% | – |
| Code Migration | Vals AI | 67.7% | – |
| ProgramBench | Vals AI | 5.5% | – |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 | Vals AI | 27.6% | – |
| Vibe Code Bench v1.1 | Vals AI | 89.6% | 73.9% |
| SWE Atlas: Codebase QnA | Scale AI SEAL | 59.1%† | – |
| SWE Atlas: Refactoring | Scale AI SEAL | 59.0%† | – |
| SWE Atlas: Test Writing | Scale AI SEAL | 50.7%† | – |
| MirrorCode | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 46.7%† | – |
| DeepSWE v1.1 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 73.2% | – |
| ALE-Bench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 2951.3 | – |
| FrontierSWE | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 65.5% | – |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 59.1% | 25.8% |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 88.4% | – |
| Startrise Frontend | Startrise | 79.9%† | – |
| FrontierCode 1.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 47.0% | 38.6% |
| Agents & tools | |||
| Terminal-Bench | Terminal-Bench | 58.2% | – |
| Remote Labor Index | Scale AI / CAIS | 20.8%† | – |
| APEX-Agents | Mercor | 64.7%† | – |
| Arena Agent | Arena (LMArena) | 14.7 | – |
| LiveBench Long Agentic | LiveBench | 82.4%† | 34.7% |
| LiveBench Browser | LiveBench | 84.0%† | 92.0% |
| LiveBench Agentic Coding | LiveBench | 57.3% | – |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | Vals AI | 87.3% | – |
| HiL-Bench | Scale AI SEAL | 65.3%† | – |
| GDPval-AA v2.1 | Artificial Analysis | 53.6% | 47.9% |
| τ³-Banking (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 41.4% | – |
| ITBench SRE (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 48.6% | – |
| Analyst Agent (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 51.3% | – |
| CUA-bench | Vals AI | 19.2% | – |
| CyberBench | Vals AI | 41.1% | – |
| Finance Agent v2 | Vals AI | 53.5% | – |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark | Vals AI | 7.1% | 7.5% |
| Legal Research Bench | Vals AI | 39.4% | 34.1% |
| SREBench | Vals AI | 56.9% | – |
| Tax Agent Bench | Vals AI | 20.7% | 32.1% |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals) | Vals AI | 59.6% | 25.3% |
| Terminal-Bench Science | Vals AI | 62.9% | – |
| Time Horizon Index: KSP | Vals AI | 90.5% | – |
| Arena Search | Arena (LMArena) | 1246 | – |
| BALROG | BALROG | 68.3% | – |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Andon Labs | 15514.7† | – |
| AutomationBench | Artificial Analysis | 68.5% | 72.5% |
| GDP.pdf (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 31.0% | 20.8% |
| Harvey LAB-AA v1.1 | Harvey | 8.6% | – |
| AA-Briefcase v1.1 | Artificial Analysis | 1569 | 1474 |
| Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 63.3% | 3.3% |
| CWE-Bench (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 63.3% | – |
| DeepSec-Bench (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 36.9% | – |
| CyberGym end-to-end (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 0.0% | – |
| FACTS Search | 89.9%† | – | |
| Maths | |||
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 93.7% | – |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 97.6% | – |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 100.0% | – |
| ProofBench | Vals AI | 99.0%† | – |
| LiveBench Mathematics | LiveBench | 96.8% | – |
| Arena Maths | Arena (LMArena) | 1487 | – |
| Knowledge | |||
| SimpleQA Verified | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 75.6% | – |
| LiveBench 2.0 Data Analysis | LiveBench | 83.0%† | 71.4% |
| LiveBench Research | LiveBench | 85.2%† | 72.7% |
| LiveBench 1.0 Data Analysis | LiveBench | 83.0% | – |
| AA-Omniscience | Artificial Analysis | 43.4 | 15.6 |
| PRBench Finance | Scale AI SEAL | 47.5%† | – |
| PRBench Legal | Scale AI SEAL | 48.4%† | – |
| BioMysteryBench | Vals AI | 79.3% | – |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark | Vals AI | 71.7% | – |
| MedCode | Vals AI | 48.5% | – |
| MedScribe | Vals AI | 87.9% | – |
| DrugDiscoveryBench | Scale AI SEAL | 68.7% | – |
| EBR-bench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 76.2% | – |
| GDP.pdf | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 34.2% | – |
| AA-Omniscience: accuracy | Artificial Analysis | 62.6% | 56.2% |
| AA-Omniscience: non-hallucination | Artificial Analysis | 48.7% | 7.2% |
| Instruction following | |||
| LiveBench Language | LiveBench | 89.4% | – |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | LiveBench | 75.6% | – |
| Arena Instruction Following | Arena (LMArena) | 1473 | – |
| Human preference | |||
| Arena Text | Arena (LMArena) | 1476 | – |
| Arena Creative Writing | Arena (LMArena) | 1449 | – |
| Arena Multi-turn | Arena (LMArena) | 1483 | – |
| Arena Longer Queries | Arena (LMArena) | 1487 | – |
| Multimodal | |||
| Arena Vision | Arena (LMArena) | 1280 | – |
| LiveBench Design | LiveBench | 82.0%† | 74.0% |
| MMMU-Pro | Artificial Analysis | 86.9% | 79.1% |
| SAGE | Vals AI | 46.4% | – |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 49.7%† | – |
| AA-3D | Artificial Analysis | 1166 | – |
| Long context | |||
| AA-LCR | Artificial Analysis | 80.7% | 79.7% |
| Arena Document | Arena (LMArena) | 1473 | – |
| MLCR | Artificial Analysis | 41.7% | – |
| Composite | |||
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 168.8† | – |
| LiveBench 2.0 | LiveBench | 86.1%† | 73.1% |
| LiveBench 1.0 | LiveBench | 82.2% | – |
| AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2 | Artificial Analysis | 52.7 | 42.7 |
| Vals Index | Vals AI | 65.0 | 53.8 |
| AA Cyber Index | Artificial Analysis | 33.4 | – |
Data as of 2026-10-21. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.
What changed
- GPT-6 Astra (max): 1 score revision.
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash: 1 new result (Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)).
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash: BenchLeader Index 62.5 → 61.9.
- GPT-6 Astra (max): 4 score revisions.
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash: 16 new results (FrontierCode 1.1 (AA), Arena WebDev, LiveBench 2.0…).
- GPT-6 Astra (max): BenchLeader Index 69.8 → 70.6.
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash: first results.
- GPT-6 Astra (max): 1 score revision.
- GPT-6 Astra (max): 1 new result (Arena Search); 3 score revisions.
- GPT-6 Astra (max): BenchLeader Index 70.3 → 69.8.
Related comparisons
- GPT-6 Astra vs Claude Opus 5.5
- GPT-6 Astra vs Gemini 4 Argon
- GPT-6 Astra vs Muse Wonder Full
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash vs Claude Opus 5.5
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash vs Gemini 4 Argon
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash vs Muse Wonder Full
- GPT-5.6 Sol vs MiniMax-M3.1-Flash
- GPT-6 Astra vs GPT-6.1 Sol
Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for coding · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs
GPT-6 Astra vs MiniMax-M3.1-Flash: questions
- Is GPT-6 Astra better than MiniMax-M3.1-Flash?
- GPT-6 Astra (max) leads on quality: 70.5 vs 61.9. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; GPT-6 Astra (max) is ahead overall as of 2026-10-21, but check the category scores for your use.
- Which is cheaper, GPT-6 Astra or MiniMax-M3.1-Flash, and will that change?
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is cheaper today: $0.262 against $20.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
- Is GPT-6 Astra better than MiniMax-M3.1-Flash for coding?
- GPT-6 Astra scores higher in coding (74 vs 63 on the category index, where 50 is average). On Arena WebDev, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 1774 for GPT-6 Astra against 1588 for MiniMax-M3.1-Flash.
- Which is better for long documents?
- They are level on long-context benchmarks (65 vs 65). Both take about 1.1M tokens: GPT-6 Astra 1,050,000, MiniMax-M3.1-Flash 1,000,000.
- Which has lower latency?
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash answers first: 20.5 s against 228.2 s to the first answer token, as Artificial Analysis measures it. Reasoning effort drives most of this: a higher setting thinks longer before it answers.
- Which is faster, GPT-6 Astra or MiniMax-M3.1-Flash?
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash streams faster: 105 against 62 output tokens per second.
- Do independent benchmarks agree on GPT-6 Astra vs MiniMax-M3.1-Flash?
- Across the 21 benchmarks both have, GPT-6 Astra leads 18, MiniMax-M3.1-Flash leads 3. Every overall index that rates both puts GPT-6 Astra ahead.
- When was MiniMax-M3.1-Flash released?
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash was released on 19 Oct 2026.