Ministral 3 8B vs NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Ministral 3 8B by Mistral or NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) 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
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoni… scores 3.4 points higher (8.9 vs 5.5) but costs 2.3× as much to run the benchmark ($63.7 vs $27.5; mid-range vs budget cost classes). Pick NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoni… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Ministral 3 8B.
| Metric | Ministral 3 8B | NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 5.5 | 8.9 | +61.8% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 61.8% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $27.47 | $63.74 | +132.0% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 2.3× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.23s | 10.10s | +62.1% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 62.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.15 / $0.15 | $0.05 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) vs Ministral 3 8B: 61.8% more intelligence, 132.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 62.1% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Ministral 3 8B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) scores 34.50 for $56.4.
Ministral 3 8BNVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/ministral-3-8b/nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/ministral-3-8b/nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill