DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) vs Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

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 36. 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 reasoning, where it averages 80.6 against 42.1. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU, 87 to 30.

Quick Verdict

Pick DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) 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

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

38.5

71
Terminal-Bench 2.0
39
70
BrowseComp
41
67
OSWorld-Verified
36

Coding

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

51.2

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

15.2

79
HumanEval
24
48
SWE-bench Verified
17
45
LiveCodeBench
16
58
SWE-bench Pro
14

Multimodal & Grounded

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

71

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

33.4

66
MMMU-Pro
28
77
OfficeQA Pro
40

Reasoning

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

80.6

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

42.1

83
SimpleQA
32
81
MuSR
33
86
BBH
70
78
LongBench v2
44
78
MRCRv2
47

Knowledge

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

64.4

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

30

87
MMLU
30
85
GPQA
29
83
SuperGPQA
27
81
OpenBookQA
25
73
MMLU-Pro
54
22
HLE
5
77
FrontierScience
34

Instruction Following

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

85

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

70

85
IFEval
70

Multilingual

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

80.8

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

61.7

84
MGSM
63
79
MMLU-ProX
61

Mathematics

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

85.1

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

47.8

87
AIME 2023
33
89
AIME 2024
35
88
AIME 2025
34
83
HMMT Feb 2023
29
85
HMMT Feb 2024
31
84
HMMT Feb 2025
30
86
BRUMO 2025
32
84
MATH-500
67

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) is ahead overall, 70 to 36. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU, where the scores are 87 and 30.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 64.4 versus 30. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 51.2 versus 15.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 85.1 versus 47.8. 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 Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 80.6 versus 42.1. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 69.4 versus 38.5. 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 Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 71 versus 33.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 85 versus 70. 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 Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 80.8 versus 61.7. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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