Mistral 8x7B v0.2 vs Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

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

Mistral 8x7B v0.2 finishes one point ahead overall, 32 to 31. That is enough to call, but not enough to treat as a blowout. This matchup comes down to a few meaningful edges rather than one model dominating the board.

Mistral 8x7B v0.2's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 13.3 against 7.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is Terminal-Bench 2.0, 24 to 33. Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) does hit back in agentic, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) is the reasoning model in the pair, while Mistral 8x7B v0.2 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. Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) gives you the larger context window at 128K, compared with 32K for Mistral 8x7B v0.2.

Quick Verdict

Pick Mistral 8x7B v0.2 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) only becomes the better choice if agentic is the priority or you need the larger 128K context window.

Agentic

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

27.9

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

34

24
Terminal-Bench 2.0
33
34
BrowseComp
37
28
OSWorld-Verified
33

Coding

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

13.3

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

7.2

21
HumanEval
16
16
SWE-bench Verified
9
12
LiveCodeBench
8
14
SWE-bench Pro
6

Multimodal & Grounded

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

32.3

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

30.4

26
MMMU-Pro
25
40
OfficeQA Pro
37

Reasoning

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

35.2

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

35.3

27
SimpleQA
26
25
MuSR
26
62
BBH
63
39
LongBench v2
37
38
MRCRv2
40

Knowledge

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

28.9

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

25.2

29
MMLU
25
28
GPQA
24
26
SuperGPQA
22
24
OpenBookQA
20
52
MMLU-Pro
49
3
HLE
1
35
FrontierScience
29

Instruction Following

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

67

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

68

67
IFEval
68

Multilingual

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

58.8

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

59.7

62
MGSM
61
57
MMLU-ProX
59

Mathematics

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

42

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

40.9

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Mistral 8x7B v0.2 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Mistral 8x7B v0.2 is ahead overall, 32 to 31. The biggest single separator in this matchup is Terminal-Bench 2.0, where the scores are 24 and 33.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Mistral 8x7B v0.2 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Mistral 8x7B v0.2 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 28.9 versus 25.2. Inside this category, FrontierScience is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Mistral 8x7B v0.2 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Mistral 8x7B v0.2 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 13.3 versus 7.2. Inside this category, SWE-bench Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Mistral 8x7B v0.2 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Mistral 8x7B v0.2 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 42 versus 40.9. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Mistral 8x7B v0.2 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 35.3 versus 35.2. Inside this category, LongBench v2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Mistral 8x7B v0.2 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 34 versus 27.9. 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, Mistral 8x7B v0.2 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Mistral 8x7B v0.2 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 32.3 versus 30.4. Inside this category, OfficeQA Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Mistral 8x7B v0.2 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 68 versus 67. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Mistral 8x7B v0.2 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 59.7 versus 58.8. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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