MiniMax M2.5 vs Ministral 3 8B

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

MiniMax M2.5 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 59 to 32. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

MiniMax M2.5's sharpest advantage is in reasoning, where it averages 69.6 against 36.1. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU, 73 to 28.

MiniMax M2.5 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.30 input / $1.20 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.

Quick Verdict

Pick MiniMax M2.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 8B only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill.

Agentic

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

53.4

Ministral 3 8B

28.9

51
Terminal-Bench 2.0
26
62
BrowseComp
36
50
OSWorld-Verified
27

Coding

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

38.7

Ministral 3 8B

14.2

65
HumanEval
23
45
SWE-bench Verified
16
35
LiveCodeBench
15
41
SWE-bench Pro
13

Multimodal & Grounded

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

62

Ministral 3 8B

32.4

57
MMMU-Pro
27
68
OfficeQA Pro
39

Reasoning

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

69.6

Ministral 3 8B

36.1

70
SimpleQA
28
68
MuSR
26
83
BBH
63
66
LongBench v2
38
69
MRCRv2
41

Knowledge

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

55.3

Ministral 3 8B

28

73
MMLU
28
72
GPQA
27
70
SuperGPQA
25
68
OpenBookQA
23
73
MMLU-Pro
52
10
HLE
3
66
FrontierScience
32

Instruction Following

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

85

Ministral 3 8B

69

85
IFEval
69

Multilingual

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

82.1

Ministral 3 8B

61.7

84
MGSM
63
81
MMLU-ProX
61

Mathematics

MiniMax M2.5

MiniMax M2.5

76.1

Ministral 3 8B

43.3

73
AIME 2023
30
75
AIME 2024
32
74
AIME 2025
33
69
HMMT Feb 2023
26
71
HMMT Feb 2024
28
70
HMMT Feb 2025
27
72
BRUMO 2025
29
81
MATH-500
60

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 8B?

MiniMax M2.5 is ahead overall, 59 to 32. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU, where the scores are 73 and 28.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 8B?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 55.3 versus 28. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 8B?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 38.7 versus 14.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 8B?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 76.1 versus 43.3. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 8B?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 69.6 versus 36.1. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 8B?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 53.4 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, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 8B?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 62 versus 32.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 8B?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 85 versus 69. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, MiniMax M2.5 or Ministral 3 8B?

MiniMax M2.5 has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.1 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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