Seed 1.6 vs Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

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

Seed 1.6 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 65 to 36. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Seed 1.6's sharpest advantage is in multimodal & grounded, where it averages 79.6 against 33.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMMU-Pro, 80 to 28.

Seed 1.6 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.25 input / $2.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning). That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. Seed 1.6 gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 128K for Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning).

Quick Verdict

Pick Seed 1.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill.

Agentic

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

62.3

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

38.5

63
Terminal-Bench 2.0
39
67
BrowseComp
41
58
OSWorld-Verified
36

Coding

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

42.4

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

15.2

64
HumanEval
24
46
SWE-bench Verified
17
38
LiveCodeBench
16
46
SWE-bench Pro
14

Multimodal & Grounded

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

79.6

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

33.4

80
MMMU-Pro
28
79
OfficeQA Pro
40

Reasoning

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

74.5

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

42.1

69
SimpleQA
32
69
MuSR
33
86
BBH
70
77
LongBench v2
44
78
MRCRv2
47

Knowledge

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

56.4

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

30

73
MMLU
30
72
GPQA
29
70
SuperGPQA
27
68
OpenBookQA
25
75
MMLU-Pro
54
11
HLE
5
68
FrontierScience
34

Instruction Following

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

87

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

70

87
IFEval
70

Multilingual

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

83.4

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

61.7

88
MGSM
63
81
MMLU-ProX
61

Mathematics

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

75.9

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

47.8

72
AIME 2023
33
74
AIME 2024
35
73
AIME 2025
34
68
HMMT Feb 2023
29
70
HMMT Feb 2024
31
69
HMMT Feb 2025
30
71
BRUMO 2025
32
82
MATH-500
67

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Seed 1.6 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Seed 1.6 is ahead overall, 65 to 36. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMMU-Pro, where the scores are 80 and 28.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Seed 1.6 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 56.4 versus 30. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Seed 1.6 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 42.4 versus 15.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Seed 1.6 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 75.9 versus 47.8. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Seed 1.6 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 74.5 versus 42.1. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Seed 1.6 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 62.3 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, Seed 1.6 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.6 versus 33.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Seed 1.6 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 87 versus 70. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Seed 1.6 or Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 83.4 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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