o3-mini vs Nova Pro

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

o3-mini is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 56 to 40. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

o3-mini's sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 82.1 against 35.3. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU, 86.9 to 41.

o3-mini is the reasoning model in the pair, while Nova Pro 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. o3-mini gives you the larger context window at 200K, compared with 128K for Nova Pro.

Quick Verdict

Pick o3-mini if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Nova Pro only becomes the better choice if you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Knowledge

o3-mini

o3-mini

82.1

Nova Pro

35.3

86.9
MMLU
41
77.2
GPQA
40
-
SuperGPQA
38
-
OpenBookQA
36
-
MMLU-Pro
53
-
HLE
4

Coding

o3-mini

o3-mini

49.3

Nova Pro

22

49.3
SWE-bench Verified
19
-
HumanEval
33
-
LiveCodeBench
14

Mathematics

o3-mini

o3-mini

87.3

Nova Pro

42.4

87.3
AIME 2024
43
-
AIME 2023
41
-
AIME 2025
42
-
HMMT Feb 2023
37
-
HMMT Feb 2024
39
-
HMMT Feb 2025
38
-
BRUMO 2025
40
-
MATH-500
59

Reasoning

Nova Pro
-
SimpleQA
39
-
MuSR
37
-
BBH
63

Instruction Following

o3-mini

o3-mini

93.9

Nova Pro

66

93.9
IFEval
66

Multilingual

Nova Pro
-
MGSM
61

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, o3-mini or Nova Pro?

o3-mini is ahead overall, 56 to 40. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU, where the scores are 86.9 and 41.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, o3-mini or Nova Pro?

o3-mini has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.1 versus 35.3. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, o3-mini or Nova Pro?

o3-mini has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 49.3 versus 22. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, o3-mini or Nova Pro?

o3-mini has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 87.3 versus 42.4. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, o3-mini or Nova Pro?

o3-mini has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 93.9 versus 66. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 9, 2026

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