Head-to-head comparison across 3benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
DeepSeek V3
35
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking
59
Pick Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking if you want the stronger benchmark profile. DeepSeek V3 only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.
Coding
+30.7 difference
Knowledge
+12.4 difference
Inst. Following
+9.6 difference
DeepSeek V3
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking
$0.27 / $1.1
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
128K
128K
Pick Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking if you want the stronger benchmark profile. DeepSeek V3 only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 59 to 35. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 69.9 against 39.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is LiveCodeBench, 37.6% to 69.9%. DeepSeek V3 does hit back in knowledge, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking is the reasoning model in the pair, while DeepSeek V3 is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use.
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 59 to 35. The biggest single separator in this matchup is LiveCodeBench, where the scores are 37.6% and 69.9%.
DeepSeek V3 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 70 versus 57.6. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 69.9 versus 39.2. Inside this category, LiveCodeBench is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
DeepSeek V3 has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 86.1 versus 76.5. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Estimates at 50,000 req/day · 1000 tokens/req average.
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