Llama 3.1 405B vs Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

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

Llama 3.1 405B is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 59 to 31. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Llama 3.1 405B's sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 74.9 against 40.9. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HumanEval, 62 to 16.

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) is the reasoning model in the pair, while Llama 3.1 405B 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 Llama 3.1 405B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) only becomes the better choice if you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.

Agentic

Llama 3.1 405B

Llama 3.1 405B

53.9

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

34

53
Terminal-Bench 2.0
33
58
BrowseComp
37
52
OSWorld-Verified
33

Coding

Llama 3.1 405B

Llama 3.1 405B

40.6

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

7.2

62
HumanEval
16
46
SWE-bench Verified
9
37
LiveCodeBench
8
43
SWE-bench Pro
6

Multimodal & Grounded

Llama 3.1 405B

Llama 3.1 405B

62.3

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

30.4

60
MMMU-Pro
25
65
OfficeQA Pro
37

Reasoning

Llama 3.1 405B

Llama 3.1 405B

68.3

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

35.3

68
SimpleQA
26
66
MuSR
26
82
BBH
63
68
LongBench v2
37
65
MRCRv2
40

Knowledge

Llama 3.1 405B

Llama 3.1 405B

53.2

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

25.2

70
MMLU
25
70
GPQA
24
68
SuperGPQA
22
66
OpenBookQA
20
71
MMLU-Pro
49
7
HLE
1
65
FrontierScience
29

Instruction Following

Llama 3.1 405B

Llama 3.1 405B

86

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

68

86
IFEval
68

Multilingual

Llama 3.1 405B

Llama 3.1 405B

80.1

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

59.7

84
MGSM
61
78
MMLU-ProX
59

Mathematics

Llama 3.1 405B

Llama 3.1 405B

74.9

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

40.9

70
AIME 2023
27
72
AIME 2024
29
71
AIME 2025
28
66
HMMT Feb 2023
23
68
HMMT Feb 2024
25
67
HMMT Feb 2025
24
69
BRUMO 2025
26
82
MATH-500
59

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Llama 3.1 405B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Llama 3.1 405B is ahead overall, 59 to 31. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HumanEval, where the scores are 62 and 16.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Llama 3.1 405B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Llama 3.1 405B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 53.2 versus 25.2. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Llama 3.1 405B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Llama 3.1 405B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 40.6 versus 7.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Llama 3.1 405B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Llama 3.1 405B has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 74.9 versus 40.9. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Llama 3.1 405B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Llama 3.1 405B has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 68.3 versus 35.3. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Llama 3.1 405B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Llama 3.1 405B has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 53.9 versus 34. Inside this category, BrowseComp is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Llama 3.1 405B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Llama 3.1 405B has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 62.3 versus 30.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Llama 3.1 405B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Llama 3.1 405B has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 86 versus 68. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Llama 3.1 405B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Llama 3.1 405B has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 80.1 versus 59.7. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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