GPT-5 nano vs Ministral 3 8B

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

GPT-5 nano is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 45 to 32. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

GPT-5 nano's sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 85.2 against 43.3. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is AIME 2025, 85.2 to 33. Ministral 3 8B does hit back in multilingual, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

GPT-5 nano is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.05 input / $0.40 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-5 nano 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. GPT-5 nano gives you the larger context window at 400K, compared with 128K for Ministral 3 8B.

Quick Verdict

Pick GPT-5 nano if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 8B only becomes the better choice if multilingual is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.

Agentic

GPT-5 nano

GPT-5 nano

37.7

Ministral 3 8B

28.9

38
Terminal-Bench 2.0
26
48
BrowseComp
36
30
OSWorld-Verified
27

Coding

GPT-5 nano

GPT-5 nano

22

Ministral 3 8B

14.2

22
SWE-bench Pro
13
Coming soon
HumanEval
23
Coming soon
SWE-bench Verified
16
Coming soon
LiveCodeBench
15

Multimodal & Grounded

GPT-5 nano

GPT-5 nano

56.7

Ministral 3 8B

32.4

58
MMMU-Pro
27
55
OfficeQA Pro
39

Reasoning

GPT-5 nano

GPT-5 nano

58.8

Ministral 3 8B

36.1

57
LongBench v2
38
61
MRCRv2
41
Coming soon
SimpleQA
28
Coming soon
MuSR
26
Coming soon
BBH
63

Knowledge

GPT-5 nano

GPT-5 nano

63.7

Ministral 3 8B

28

71.2
GPQA
27
58
FrontierScience
32
Coming soon
MMLU
28
Coming soon
SuperGPQA
25
Coming soon
OpenBookQA
23
Coming soon
MMLU-Pro
52
Coming soon
HLE
3

Instruction Following

Coming soon

Comparable scores for this category are coming soon. One or both models do not have sourced results here yet.

Coming soon
IFEval
69

Multilingual

Ministral 3 8B

GPT-5 nano

48

Ministral 3 8B

61.7

48
MMLU-ProX
61
Coming soon
MGSM
63

Mathematics

GPT-5 nano

GPT-5 nano

85.2

Ministral 3 8B

43.3

85.2
AIME 2025
33
Coming soon
AIME 2023
30
Coming soon
AIME 2024
32
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-5 nano or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5 nano is ahead overall, 45 to 32. The biggest single separator in this matchup is AIME 2025, where the scores are 85.2 and 33.

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

GPT-5 nano has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 63.7 versus 28. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

GPT-5 nano has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 22 versus 14.2. Inside this category, SWE-bench Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

GPT-5 nano has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 85.2 versus 43.3. Inside this category, AIME 2025 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

GPT-5 nano has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 58.8 versus 36.1. Inside this category, MRCRv2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

GPT-5 nano has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 37.7 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 nano or Ministral 3 8B?

GPT-5 nano has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 56.7 versus 32.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

Ministral 3 8B has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 61.7 versus 48. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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