Verdict
Built from the measurements below
- Accuracy is too close to call: Ministral 3 14B 2512 scored 33.8% and Ministral 3 8B 2512 42.5% on the same 80 questions, a gap within what chance alone could produce.
- Ministral 3 8B 2512 is 1.2× cheaper per question as billed ($0.00027 vs $0.00031), reasoning tokens included.
- Ministral 3 8B 2512 generates text 3.8× faster: 124 tokens per second against 32.
- Ministral 3 8B 2512 starts answering sooner: 0.3 s to the first token, against 0.6 s for Ministral 3 14B 2512.
Which should you choose?
Choose Ministral 3 8B 2512 for the lower cost per correct answer ($0.00063 against $0.00092), faster streaming and a quicker first token. The widest subject gap is in economics: Ministral 3 8B 2512 answered 7 of 9 correctly, Ministral 3 14B 2512 4 of 9. With so few questions per subject, treat this as a lead to test on your own prompts, not a result.
Accuracy gap -8.7 points (z = -1.14). We call a winner only when z is at least 1.96, the usual 95% threshold. Speed, latency and price need a 10% margin.