Head-to-head comparison across 3benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
Claude Opus 4.6
87
MiniMax M3
76
Verified leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.6 #6 · MiniMax M3 #12
Pick Claude Opus 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. MiniMax M3 only becomes the better choice if coding is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.
Agentic
+0.7 difference
Coding
+2.6 difference
Multimodal
+12.4 difference
Claude Opus 4.6
MiniMax M3
$5 / $25
$0.3 / $1.2
40 t/s
N/A
1.78s
N/A
1M
1M
Pick Claude Opus 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. MiniMax M3 only becomes the better choice if coding is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.
Claude Opus 4.6 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 87 to 76. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Claude Opus 4.6's sharpest advantage is in multimodal & grounded, where it averages 77.3 against 64.9. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Pro, 53.4% to 59%. MiniMax M3 does hit back in coding, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
Claude Opus 4.6 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $5.00 input / $25.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.30 input / $1.20 output per 1M tokens for MiniMax M3. That is roughly 20.8x on output cost alone.
Claude Opus 4.6 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 87 to 76. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Pro, where the scores are 53.4% and 59%.
MiniMax M3 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 67 versus 64.4. Inside this category, SWE-bench Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Claude Opus 4.6 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 72.6 versus 71.9. Inside this category, Claw-Eval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Claude Opus 4.6 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 77.3 versus 64.9. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
For engineers, researchers, and the plain curious — a weekly brief on new models, ranking shifts, and pricing changes.
Free. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.