Ministral 3 3B vs Nemotron 3.5 Super VL
Which is better for the money: Ministral 3 3B by Mistral or Nemotron 3.5 Super VL by NVIDIA? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL scores 21.7 points higher (26.5 vs 4.8) but costs 23× as much to run the benchmark ($283 vs $12.2; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Nemotron 3.5 Super VL when you need intelligence above 4.8, and Ministral 3 3B when 4.8 is enough.
| Metric | Ministral 3 3B | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 4.8 | 26.5 | +452.1% Nemotron 3.5 Super VL is 5.5× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $12.23 | $282.51 | +2210.0% Nemotron 3.5 Super VL is 23× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 3.32s | 6.35s | +91.3% Nemotron 3.5 Super VL is 91.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.10 | $0.23 / $0.57 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL vs Ministral 3 3B: 452.1% more intelligence, 2210.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 91.3% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Ministral 3 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Nemotron 3.5 Super VL is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Ministral 3 3BNemotron 3.5 Super VLToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/ministral-3-3b/nemotron-3-5-super-vl · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/ministral-3-3b/nemotron-3-5-super-vl?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill