GPT-4.1 vs Ministral 3 8B

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

GPT-4.1 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 65 to 32. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

GPT-4.1's sharpest advantage is in reasoning, where it averages 80.9 against 36.1. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU, 90.2 to 28. Ministral 3 8B does hit back in mathematics, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

GPT-4.1 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $2.00 input / $8.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Ministral 3 8B. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. GPT-4.1 gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 128K for Ministral 3 8B.

Quick Verdict

Pick GPT-4.1 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 8B only becomes the better choice if mathematics is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.

Agentic

GPT-4.1

GPT-4.1

64.7

Ministral 3 8B

28.9

61
Terminal-Bench 2.0
26
73
BrowseComp
36
63
OSWorld-Verified
27

Coding

GPT-4.1

GPT-4.1

51.7

Ministral 3 8B

14.2

54.6
SWE-bench Verified
16
51
SWE-bench Pro
13
Coming soon
HumanEval
23
Coming soon
LiveCodeBench
15

Multimodal & Grounded

GPT-4.1

GPT-4.1

73.6

Ministral 3 8B

32.4

70
MMMU-Pro
27
78
OfficeQA Pro
39

Reasoning

GPT-4.1

GPT-4.1

80.9

Ministral 3 8B

36.1

80
LongBench v2
38
82
MRCRv2
41
Coming soon
SimpleQA
28
Coming soon
MuSR
26
Coming soon
BBH
63

Knowledge

GPT-4.1

GPT-4.1

63.3

Ministral 3 8B

28

90.2
MMLU
28
66.3
GPQA
27
61
FrontierScience
32
Coming soon
SuperGPQA
25
Coming soon
OpenBookQA
23
Coming soon
MMLU-Pro
52
Coming soon
HLE
3

Instruction Following

GPT-4.1

GPT-4.1

87.4

Ministral 3 8B

69

87.4
IFEval
69

Multilingual

GPT-4.1

GPT-4.1

69

Ministral 3 8B

61.7

69
MMLU-ProX
61
Coming soon
MGSM
63

Mathematics

Ministral 3 8B

GPT-4.1

26.4

Ministral 3 8B

43.3

26.4
AIME 2024
32
Coming soon
AIME 2023
30
Coming soon
AIME 2025
33
Coming soon
HMMT Feb 2023
26
Coming soon
HMMT Feb 2024
28
Coming soon
HMMT Feb 2025
27
Coming soon
BRUMO 2025
29
Coming soon
MATH-500
60

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, GPT-4.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-4.1 is ahead overall, 65 to 32. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU, where the scores are 90.2 and 28.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, GPT-4.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-4.1 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 63.3 versus 28. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, GPT-4.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-4.1 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 51.7 versus 14.2. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, GPT-4.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

Ministral 3 8B has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 43.3 versus 26.4. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, GPT-4.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-4.1 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 80.9 versus 36.1. Inside this category, LongBench v2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, GPT-4.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-4.1 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 64.7 versus 28.9. Inside this category, BrowseComp is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, GPT-4.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-4.1 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 73.6 versus 32.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, GPT-4.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-4.1 has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 87.4 versus 69. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, GPT-4.1 or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-4.1 has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 69 versus 61.7. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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