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

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 32. 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 agentic, where it averages 38.5 against 27.9. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is Terminal-Bench 2.0, 39 to 24.

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

Quick Verdict

Pick Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Mistral 8x7B v0.2 only becomes the better choice if you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Agentic

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

38.5

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

27.9

39
Terminal-Bench 2.0
24
41
BrowseComp
34
36
OSWorld-Verified
28

Coding

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

15.2

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

13.3

24
HumanEval
21
17
SWE-bench Verified
16
16
LiveCodeBench
12
14
SWE-bench Pro
14

Multimodal & Grounded

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

33.4

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

32.3

28
MMMU-Pro
26
40
OfficeQA Pro
40

Reasoning

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

42.1

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

35.2

32
SimpleQA
27
33
MuSR
25
70
BBH
62
44
LongBench v2
39
47
MRCRv2
38

Knowledge

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

30

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

28.9

30
MMLU
29
29
GPQA
28
27
SuperGPQA
26
25
OpenBookQA
24
54
MMLU-Pro
52
5
HLE
3
34
FrontierScience
35

Instruction Following

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

70

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

67

70
IFEval
67

Multilingual

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

61.7

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

58.8

63
MGSM
62
61
MMLU-ProX
57

Mathematics

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

47.8

Mistral 8x7B v0.2

42

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

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) is ahead overall, 36 to 32. The biggest single separator in this matchup is Terminal-Bench 2.0, where the scores are 39 and 24.

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

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 30 versus 28.9. Inside this category, MMLU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 15.2 versus 13.3. Inside this category, LiveCodeBench is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 47.8 versus 42. 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 Mistral 8x7B v0.2?

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 42.1 versus 35.2. Inside this category, MRCRv2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 38.5 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, Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) or Mistral 8x7B v0.2?

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 33.4 versus 32.3. 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 Mistral 8x7B v0.2?

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 70 versus 67. 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 Mistral 8x7B v0.2?

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