DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) vs Mercury 2

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 70 to 65. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)'s sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 51.2 against 41.1. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Pro, 58 to 43.

Quick Verdict

Pick DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Mercury 2 only becomes the better choice if its workflow or ecosystem matters more than the raw scoreboard.

Agentic

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

69.4

Mercury 2

63.7

71
Terminal-Bench 2.0
63
70
BrowseComp
67
67
OSWorld-Verified
62

Coding

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

51.2

Mercury 2

41.1

79
HumanEval
75
48
SWE-bench Verified
46
45
LiveCodeBench
38
58
SWE-bench Pro
43

Multimodal & Grounded

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

71

Mercury 2

68.3

66
MMMU-Pro
66
77
OfficeQA Pro
71

Reasoning

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

80.6

Mercury 2

80.1

83
SimpleQA
82
81
MuSR
82
86
BBH
87
78
LongBench v2
77
78
MRCRv2
76

Knowledge

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

64.4

Mercury 2

57.2

87
MMLU
78
85
GPQA
78
83
SuperGPQA
76
81
OpenBookQA
74
73
MMLU-Pro
72
22
HLE
9
77
FrontierScience
69

Instruction Following

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

85

Mercury 2

84

85
IFEval
84

Multilingual

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

80.8

Mercury 2

79.7

84
MGSM
81
79
MMLU-ProX
79

Mathematics

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

85.1

Mercury 2

80.9

87
AIME 2023
81
89
AIME 2024
83
88
AIME 2025
82
83
HMMT Feb 2023
77
85
HMMT Feb 2024
79
84
HMMT Feb 2025
78
86
BRUMO 2025
80
84
MATH-500
82

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Mercury 2?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) is ahead overall, 70 to 65. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Pro, where the scores are 58 and 43.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Mercury 2?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 64.4 versus 57.2. Inside this category, HLE is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Mercury 2?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 51.2 versus 41.1. Inside this category, SWE-bench Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Mercury 2?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 85.1 versus 80.9. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Mercury 2?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 80.6 versus 80.1. Inside this category, MRCRv2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Mercury 2?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 69.4 versus 63.7. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Mercury 2?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 71 versus 68.3. Inside this category, OfficeQA Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Mercury 2?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 85 versus 84. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Mercury 2?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 80.8 versus 79.7. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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