The AI arena is free today

Open Superagent

Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512) vs Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) leads the LLM Stats Score 29.9 to 7.4.

Mistral AI · NVIDIA · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) leads the overall LLM Stats Score 29.9 to 7.4, ranking #142 overall.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512)

  • you are already invested in the Mistral AI ecosystem

Choose Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)

  • overall performance matters — it scores 29.9 and ranks #142 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning — it leads those capability indexes
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Oct 2026

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512)
Mistral AI
Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)
NVIDIA
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
7.4
#308
29.9
#142
Reasoning
9.0
#286
29.2
#143
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
— / M
— / M
Output price
— / M
— / M
Context window
—
—

Individual benchmarks

4 reported for Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512) · 10 for Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)

No common benchmarks found

Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512) and Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)don't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

66.0B diff

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) has 66.0B more parameters than Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512), making it 825.0% larger.

Mistral AI
Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512)
8.0Bparameters
NVIDIA
Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)
74.0Bparameters
8.0B
Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512)
74.0B
Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Both Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512) and Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) support multimodal inputs.

They are both capable of processing various types of data, offering versatility in application.

Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512)

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512) is licensed under Apache 2.0, while Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) uses OpenMDW License v1.1.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512)

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)

OpenMDW License v1.1

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512) was released on 2025-12-04, while Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) was released on 2026-10-15.

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) is 11 months newer than Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512).

Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512)

Dec 4, 2025

10 months ago

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)

Oct 15, 2026

5 days ago

10mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2026-05-01, while Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512)'s cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)'s training data extends to 2026-05-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512)'s cutoff date.

Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512)

—

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)

May 2026

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512) and Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512)
✓ Preferred
Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512) vs Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB).

Which is better, Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512) or Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)?

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) leads the LLM Stats Score 29.9 to 7.4. Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512) is made by Mistral AI and Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) is made by NVIDIA. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512) compare to Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) in benchmarks?

Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512) scores MATH: 87.6%, Wild Bench: 66.8%, Arena Hard: 50.9%, MM-MT-Bench: 8.1%. Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) scores PinchBench: 87.8%, GPQA: 86.4%, BrowseComp: 66.8%, AA-LCR: 64.1%, MCP Atlas: 52.2%.

What are the main differences between Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512) and Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (7.4 vs 29.9), licensing (Apache 2.0 vs OpenMDW License v1.1). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512) and Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)?

Ministral 3 (8B Instruct 2512) is developed by Mistral AI and Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) is developed by NVIDIA.

Related comparisons