Step 3.5 Flash vs Mistral 8x7B

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

Step 3.5 Flash is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 66 to 48. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Step 3.5 Flash's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 47.1 against 25.8. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is Terminal-Bench 2.0, 62 to 40.

Step 3.5 Flash gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 32K for Mistral 8x7B.

Quick Verdict

Pick Step 3.5 Flash if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Mistral 8x7B only becomes the better choice if its workflow or ecosystem matters more than the raw scoreboard.

Agentic

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

60.2

Mistral 8x7B

41.1

62
Terminal-Bench 2.0
40
66
BrowseComp
47
54
OSWorld-Verified
38

Coding

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

47.1

Mistral 8x7B

25.8

77
HumanEval
55
48
SWE-bench Verified
28
45
LiveCodeBench
23
49
SWE-bench Pro
28

Multimodal & Grounded

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

66.7

Mistral 8x7B

48.3

64
MMMU-Pro
42
70
OfficeQA Pro
56

Reasoning

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

78.3

Mistral 8x7B

60.3

82
SimpleQA
63
82
MuSR
61
83
BBH
76
74
LongBench v2
57
73
MRCRv2
53

Knowledge

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

60.8

Mistral 8x7B

48.4

84
MMLU
65
83
GPQA
64
81
SuperGPQA
62
79
OpenBookQA
60
76
MMLU-Pro
65
12
HLE
8
71
FrontierScience
56

Instruction Following

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

87

Mistral 8x7B

78

87
IFEval
78

Multilingual

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

82.8

Mistral 8x7B

72.1

86
MGSM
74
81
MMLU-ProX
71

Mathematics

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

84.5

Mistral 8x7B

68.1

85
AIME 2023
65
87
AIME 2024
67
86
AIME 2025
66
81
HMMT Feb 2023
61
83
HMMT Feb 2024
63
82
HMMT Feb 2025
62
84
BRUMO 2025
64
85
MATH-500
73

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Step 3.5 Flash or Mistral 8x7B?

Step 3.5 Flash is ahead overall, 66 to 48. The biggest single separator in this matchup is Terminal-Bench 2.0, where the scores are 62 and 40.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Mistral 8x7B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.8 versus 48.4. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Step 3.5 Flash or Mistral 8x7B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 47.1 versus 25.8. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Step 3.5 Flash or Mistral 8x7B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 84.5 versus 68.1. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Step 3.5 Flash or Mistral 8x7B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 78.3 versus 60.3. Inside this category, MuSR is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Mistral 8x7B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.2 versus 41.1. 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, Step 3.5 Flash or Mistral 8x7B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 66.7 versus 48.3. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Step 3.5 Flash or Mistral 8x7B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 87 versus 78. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Mistral 8x7B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.8 versus 72.1. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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