# Mistral Small 3.1 vs Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct

> Mistral Small 3.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.7 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/mistral-small-3-1-vs-phi-3-small-8k-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 17

## Summary

- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3.1 scores higher in 6 categories and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct in 2 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct leads 27.6 to 14.7.

## Snapshot

| | Mistral Small 3.1 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 31.7 | 29.3 |
| Rank | 269 | 314 |
| Context | 128K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.35 | — |
| Output $/M | $0.56 | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Mistral Small 3.1: 38.3 (#179)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.9 (#318)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1309 | 1101 |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 20.3% |

## Reasoning

- Mistral Small 3.1: 19.7 (#254)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.8 (#323)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1278 | 1100 |
| Chess Puzzles | 1% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 15.9% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 30.3% |
| Adversarial NLI | — | 58.1% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 79.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.48 | — |
| HellaSwag | — | 77% |
| LiveBench | — | 24% |
| WinoGrande | — | 81.5% |

## Math

- Mistral Small 3.1: 14.7 (#301)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.6 (#248)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1262 | 1151 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 3.9% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 24.8% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 17.6% |

## Knowledge

- Mistral Small 3.1: 22.6 (#271)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 29.1 (#240)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1257 | 1067 |
| GPQA Diamond | 41.9% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 61% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 39.2% | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 90.7% |
| MMLU | — | 75.7% |
| OpenBookQA | — | 88% |
| TriviaQA | — | 58.1% |

## Multimodal

- Mistral Small 3.1: 33.2 (#99)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1136 | — |

## Multilingual

- Mistral Small 3.1: 41.2 (#209)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#272)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1255 | 1058 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1253 | 1061 |
| LMArena French | 1273 | 1135 |
| LMArena German | 1266 | 1080 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1208 | 966 |
| LMArena Korean | 1206 | 894 |
| LMArena Russian | 1263 | 1111 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1283 | 1111 |

## Instruction Following

- Mistral Small 3.1: 63.6 (#230)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 51.9 (#292)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1264 | 1087 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 47.2% |
| IFEval | 75% | — |

## Long Context

- Mistral Small 3.1: 39.5 (#178)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#267)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1299 | 1088 |

## Writing & Preference

- Mistral Small 3.1: 37.0 (#259)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.1 (#284)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1277 | 1110 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1253 | 1083 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1270 | 1068 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 761 | — |
| WildBench | 78.8% | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 12.9% |

## FAQ

### Is Mistral Small 3.1 better than Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct?

Mistral Small 3.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.7 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Mistral Small 3.1 or Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better for coding?

Mistral Small 3.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.3 versus 27.9 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3.1 and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3.1 has 28 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32.