Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B vs Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

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

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 61 to 36. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B's sharpest advantage is in reasoning, where it averages 71.8 against 42.1. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU, 68 to 30.

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) is the reasoning model in the pair, while Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B 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. Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 128K for Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning).

Quick Verdict

Pick Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) only becomes the better choice if you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.

Agentic

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

55.3

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

38.5

55
Terminal-Bench 2.0
39
59
BrowseComp
41
53
OSWorld-Verified
36

Coding

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

44.2

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

15.2

59
HumanEval
24
46
SWE-bench Verified
17
42
LiveCodeBench
16
46
SWE-bench Pro
14

Multimodal & Grounded

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

60.4

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

33.4

55
MMMU-Pro
28
67
OfficeQA Pro
40

Reasoning

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

71.8

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

42.1

64
SimpleQA
32
62
MuSR
33
88
BBH
70
77
LongBench v2
44
77
MRCRv2
47

Knowledge

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

55.8

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

30

68
MMLU
30
67
GPQA
29
65
SuperGPQA
27
63
OpenBookQA
25
75
MMLU-Pro
54
16
HLE
5
66
FrontierScience
34

Instruction Following

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

86

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

70

86
IFEval
70

Multilingual

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

81.5

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

61.7

86
MGSM
63
79
MMLU-ProX
61

Mathematics

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

74.6

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

47.8

67
AIME 2023
33
69
AIME 2024
35
68
AIME 2025
34
63
HMMT Feb 2023
29
65
HMMT Feb 2024
31
64
HMMT Feb 2025
30
66
BRUMO 2025
32
85
MATH-500
67

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B is ahead overall, 61 to 36. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU, where the scores are 68 and 30.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 55.8 versus 30. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 44.2 versus 15.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 74.6 versus 47.8. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 71.8 versus 42.1. Inside this category, LongBench v2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 55.3 versus 38.5. Inside this category, BrowseComp is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.4 versus 33.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 86 versus 70. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 81.5 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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