GPT-5 mini vs Ministral 3 8B

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

GPT-5 mini is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 69 to 32. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

GPT-5 mini's sharpest advantage is in multimodal & grounded, where it averages 83.8 against 32.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU, 88 to 28.

GPT-5 mini is the reasoning model in the pair, while Ministral 3 8B 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.

Quick Verdict

Pick GPT-5 mini if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 8B only becomes the better choice if you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Agentic

GPT-5 mini

GPT-5 mini

65.7

Ministral 3 8B

28.9

68
Terminal-Bench 2.0
26
70
BrowseComp
36
60
OSWorld-Verified
27

Coding

GPT-5 mini

GPT-5 mini

42.8

Ministral 3 8B

14.2

80
HumanEval
23
41
SWE-bench Verified
16
37
LiveCodeBench
15
49
SWE-bench Pro
13

Multimodal & Grounded

GPT-5 mini

GPT-5 mini

83.8

Ministral 3 8B

32.4

86
MMMU-Pro
27
81
OfficeQA Pro
39

Reasoning

GPT-5 mini

GPT-5 mini

81.8

Ministral 3 8B

36.1

84
SimpleQA
28
82
MuSR
26
87
BBH
63
80
LongBench v2
38
79
MRCRv2
41

Knowledge

GPT-5 mini

GPT-5 mini

62.8

Ministral 3 8B

28

88
MMLU
28
86
GPQA
27
84
SuperGPQA
25
82
OpenBookQA
23
73
MMLU-Pro
52
16
HLE
3
75
FrontierScience
32

Instruction Following

GPT-5 mini

GPT-5 mini

82

Ministral 3 8B

69

82
IFEval
69

Multilingual

GPT-5 mini

GPT-5 mini

80.1

Ministral 3 8B

61.7

82
MGSM
63
79
MMLU-ProX
61

Mathematics

GPT-5 mini

GPT-5 mini

87.2

Ministral 3 8B

43.3

90
AIME 2023
30
92
AIME 2024
32
91
AIME 2025
33
86
HMMT Feb 2023
26
88
HMMT Feb 2024
28
87
HMMT Feb 2025
27
89
BRUMO 2025
29
85
MATH-500
60

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, GPT-5 mini or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5 mini is ahead overall, 69 to 32. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU, where the scores are 88 and 28.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, GPT-5 mini or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5 mini has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 62.8 versus 28. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, GPT-5 mini or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5 mini has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 42.8 versus 14.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, GPT-5 mini or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5 mini has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 87.2 versus 43.3. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, GPT-5 mini or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5 mini has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 81.8 versus 36.1. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, GPT-5 mini or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5 mini has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 65.7 versus 28.9. 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 mini or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5 mini has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 83.8 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-5 mini or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5 mini has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 82 versus 69. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, GPT-5 mini or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5 mini has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 80.1 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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