Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) vs Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

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

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 36 to 31. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)'s sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 15.2 against 7.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HumanEval, 24 to 16.

Quick Verdict

Pick Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) only becomes the better choice if its workflow or ecosystem matters more than the raw scoreboard.

Agentic

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

38.5

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

34

39
Terminal-Bench 2.0
33
41
BrowseComp
37
36
OSWorld-Verified
33

Coding

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

15.2

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

7.2

24
HumanEval
16
17
SWE-bench Verified
9
16
LiveCodeBench
8
14
SWE-bench Pro
6

Multimodal & Grounded

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

33.4

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

30.4

28
MMMU-Pro
25
40
OfficeQA Pro
37

Reasoning

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

42.1

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

35.3

32
SimpleQA
26
33
MuSR
26
70
BBH
63
44
LongBench v2
37
47
MRCRv2
40

Knowledge

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

30

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

25.2

30
MMLU
25
29
GPQA
24
27
SuperGPQA
22
25
OpenBookQA
20
54
MMLU-Pro
49
5
HLE
1
34
FrontierScience
29

Instruction Following

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

70

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

68

70
IFEval
68

Multilingual

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

61.7

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

59.7

63
MGSM
61
61
MMLU-ProX
59

Mathematics

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

47.8

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

40.9

33
AIME 2023
27
35
AIME 2024
29
34
AIME 2025
28
29
HMMT Feb 2023
23
31
HMMT Feb 2024
25
30
HMMT Feb 2025
24
32
BRUMO 2025
26
67
MATH-500
59

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) is ahead overall, 36 to 31. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HumanEval, where the scores are 24 and 16.

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

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 30 versus 25.2. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 15.2 versus 7.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 47.8 versus 40.9. Inside this category, MATH-500 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 42.1 versus 35.3. Inside this category, MuSR is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 38.5 versus 34. 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, Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 33.4 versus 30.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 70 versus 68. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 61.7 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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