GPT-5.1 vs Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

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

GPT-5.1 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 80 to 36. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

GPT-5.1's sharpest advantage is in multimodal & grounded, where it averages 91.8 against 33.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU, 97 to 30.

GPT-5.1 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $1.50 input / $6.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning). That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. GPT-5.1 gives you the larger context window at 200K, compared with 128K for Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning).

Quick Verdict

Pick GPT-5.1 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill.

Agentic

GPT-5.1

GPT-5.1

75.8

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

38.5

78
Terminal-Bench 2.0
39
79
BrowseComp
41
71
OSWorld-Verified
36

Coding

GPT-5.1

GPT-5.1

66.2

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

15.2

89
HumanEval
24
68
SWE-bench Verified
17
61
LiveCodeBench
16
71
SWE-bench Pro
14

Multimodal & Grounded

GPT-5.1

GPT-5.1

91.8

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

33.4

94
MMMU-Pro
28
89
OfficeQA Pro
40

Reasoning

GPT-5.1

GPT-5.1

88.4

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

42.1

93
SimpleQA
32
91
MuSR
33
92
BBH
70
84
LongBench v2
44
84
MRCRv2
47

Knowledge

GPT-5.1

GPT-5.1

72.5

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

30

97
MMLU
30
95
GPQA
29
93
SuperGPQA
27
91
OpenBookQA
25
83
MMLU-Pro
54
27
HLE
5
84
FrontierScience
34

Instruction Following

GPT-5.1

GPT-5.1

89

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

70

89
IFEval
70

Multilingual

GPT-5.1

GPT-5.1

87.7

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

61.7

89
MGSM
63
87
MMLU-ProX
61

Mathematics

GPT-5.1

GPT-5.1

95.4

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

47.8

99
AIME 2023
33
99
AIME 2024
35
98
AIME 2025
34
95
HMMT Feb 2023
29
97
HMMT Feb 2024
31
96
HMMT Feb 2025
30
96
BRUMO 2025
32
94
MATH-500
67

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

GPT-5.1 is ahead overall, 80 to 36. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU, where the scores are 97 and 30.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

GPT-5.1 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 72.5 versus 30. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

GPT-5.1 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 66.2 versus 15.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

GPT-5.1 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 95.4 versus 47.8. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

GPT-5.1 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 88.4 versus 42.1. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

GPT-5.1 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 75.8 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, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

GPT-5.1 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 91.8 versus 33.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

GPT-5.1 has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 89 versus 70. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, GPT-5.1 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

GPT-5.1 has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 87.7 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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