Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.
Step 3.5 Flash is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 66 to 59. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Step 3.5 Flash's sharpest advantage is in reasoning, where it averages 78.3 against 69.6. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MuSR, 82 to 68.
MiniMax M2.5 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.30 input / $1.20 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.10 input / $0.30 output per 1M tokens for Step 3.5 Flash. That is roughly 4.0x on output cost alone. Step 3.5 Flash gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 128K for MiniMax M2.5.
Pick Step 3.5 Flash if you want the stronger benchmark profile. MiniMax M2.5 only becomes the better choice if its workflow or ecosystem matters more than the raw scoreboard.
Step 3.5 Flash
60.2
MiniMax M2.5
53.4
Step 3.5 Flash
47.1
MiniMax M2.5
38.7
Step 3.5 Flash
66.7
MiniMax M2.5
62
Step 3.5 Flash
78.3
MiniMax M2.5
69.6
Step 3.5 Flash
60.8
MiniMax M2.5
55.3
Step 3.5 Flash
87
MiniMax M2.5
85
Step 3.5 Flash
82.8
MiniMax M2.5
82.1
Step 3.5 Flash
84.5
MiniMax M2.5
76.1
Step 3.5 Flash is ahead overall, 66 to 59. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MuSR, where the scores are 82 and 68.
Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.8 versus 55.3. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 47.1 versus 38.7. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 84.5 versus 76.1. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 78.3 versus 69.6. Inside this category, MuSR is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.2 versus 53.4. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 66.7 versus 62. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 87 versus 85. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.8 versus 82.1. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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