Gemma 3 12B IT vs Ministral 8B Instruct vs Qwen Turbo

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 2 points (Qwen Turbo 57/100, Gemma 3 12B IT 55/100, Ministral 8B Instruct 42/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen Turbo for raw capability and Gemma 3 12B IT on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%. Capability uses the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond), because Ministral 8B Instruct and Qwen Turbo has no Capabilities Index score yet.

Gemma 3 12B IT is cheaper at $0.05 input / $0.15 output per million tokens (median across 7 API providers). Qwen Turbo costs $0.05 input / $0.20 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price); Ministral 8B Instruct costs $0.15 input / $0.15 output per million tokens (median across 1 API provider). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.075 per million tokens for Gemma 3 12B IT versus $0.087 for Qwen Turbo (1.2× as much) and $0.15 for Ministral 8B Instruct (2× as much).

Not every model here has a Capabilities Index score, so we compare the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond): Qwen Turbo 41.8%, Gemma 3 12B IT 39.5% and Ministral 8B Instruct 27.2%. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen Turbo 41.8%, Gemma 3 12B IT 39.5%, Ministral 8B Instruct 27.2%.

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Gemma 3 12B IT, Ministral 8B Instruct and Qwen Turbo yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen Turbo leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Qwen Turbo has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 131,072 for Gemma 3 12B IT and 131,072 for Ministral 8B Instruct. Maximum output per response: Gemma 3 12B IT up to 131,072, Ministral 8B Instruct up to 8,192, Qwen Turbo up to 16,384 tokens.

Gemma 3 12B IT accepts text and images; Ministral 8B Instruct accepts text; Qwen Turbo accepts text. Gemma 3 12B IT handles the widest range of inputs.

Gemma 3 12B IT and Ministral 8B Instruct publishes its weights (Mistral Research License) and can be self-hosted; Qwen Turbo is proprietary.

Gemma 3 12B IT is the newest, released Mar 12, 2025. Qwen Turbo came out Nov 1, 2024; Ministral 8B Instruct came out Oct 16, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Gemma 3 12B IT Aug 2024, Qwen Turbo Apr 2024.

Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.