Step 3.5 FlashvsMinimax M2.1 Preview
Step 3.5 Flash leads the overall Podium Score by 1.0 points (70.0 vs 69.0).Category wins: Step 3.5 Flash 0 — 0 Minimax M2.1 Preview.Step 3.5 Flash is the cheaper pick ($3/M vs $3/M per 1M output tokens). Step 3.5 Flash is faster (50 t/s vs 50 t/s).
Key VerdictAggregated 2026 Benchmark Analysis
Step 3.5 Flash is rated higher overall with a Podium Score of 70.0 (vs 69.0 for Minimax M2.1 Preview). Both models show closely matched capabilities across domain benchmarks.
Coding & Engineering
Comparable
Inference Speed
Step 3.5 Flash (50 t/s)
Cost Efficiency
Step 3.5 Flash ($3/M/M)
| Metric | Step 3.5 Flash | Minimax M2.1 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Podium Score | 70.0 ▲ | 69.0 |
| Arena Elo | — | — |
| Intelligence Index | — | — |
| Coding | — | — |
| Math | — | — |
| Reasoning | — | — |
| Agentic | — | — |
| Knowledge | — | — |
| Multimodal | — | — |
| Long-context | — | — |
| Output speed | 50 t/s | 50 t/s |
| Output price | $3/M | $3/M |
| Context window | 128K | 128K |
Scores aggregated from five independent leaderboards. See Methodology. More head-to-heads: Step 3.5 Flash vs Claude Mythos · Step 3.5 Flash vs Claude Fable 5 · Step 3.5 Flash vs Kimi K3 · Step 3.5 Flash vs Claude Opus 5