Was Grade 3 Trunks stronger than Cell?

[Yuji]

Cell outright admits Trunks is stronger.

Chapter: 387 (DBZ 193), P1.3, P2.1-3
Trunks: “What you’re about to see now…is my true power!!!”
Cell: “I see…It truly is magnificent power…You easily surpass me…But you can’t win against me like that…Absolutely not…”

So here are the options:

1. Trunks in raw power is stronger than Cell, and by proxy, MSS Goku and likely MSS Gohan as well;
2. Cell was lying;
3. Cell was not lying, but he got stronger during the 10 days, or just wasn't aware of his own strength; Toriyama retconned it.

I see people assuming 2 or 3, but why is 1 not given more credit? Just because Goku scares Trunks when he's showing off his power to Karin? Presumably Trunks was just shocked at how strong Goku was as a "mere" Super Saiyan and was calculating how strong he'd become with the Grade forms.

[Alruneia]

Is this a hotly debated topic? I always thought it was pretty clearly the first option at least. Grade 3 is monstrously powerful, it's just monstrously slow as well. Trunks was directly stronger than (regular) Perfect Cell, but there's no point in having all the power in the world if you can't hit the guy. That was kinda the whole lesson.

Honestly, the grade system is kinda doomed to be confusing. Grade 1 is "basic" Super Saiyan, that's fine. Grade 2 is pumping your body full of power but stopping before you hit diminishing returns, and Grade 3 is continuing well into diminishing returns territory, okay, those are connected. But then Grade 4 is about mastering the Super Saiyan state and has nothing to do with Grades 2 and 3. There's no connection there. Plus, Grade 4 having a bigger number can make people think it must be stronger than Grade 3, even though that's not necessarily true at all. And then Grade 5 is just Super Saiyan 2, which it later on seems like you don't really need Grade 4 in order to get to. I think the grade system can be hard to navigate and can kinda mislead people. Not that I'm expecting people to suddenly start saying ASS/USS/MSS instead.

[Grimlock]

Since I have to me that Super Saiyan Grade 3 is stronger than Super Saiyan 2 (i.e. having a multiplier over x100), then yes, Super Saiyan Grade 3 Goku, Vegeta and Trunks are stronger than Cell, that coupled with the fact that Cell himself says so about Trunks, as you pointed it out.

[Koitsukai]

I don't think Cell meant his true power, because not even he was aware of how strong he really was. Trunks obviously was stronger than Cell at that time, but then again, Cell powered up twice after the Cell Games started.

If he surpasses FPSS Goku is uncertain, I would say no because they were all very surprised at Goku's 50% (without even knowing it was only 50%), and I wouldn't say Trunks was thinking about how strong Goku could become using the grade forms because by then he knew that's not the proper route, not even as a last resort option. And particularly not a thing masters like Goku or Vegeta would even consider trying.

I would say Trunks lands somewhere between the preliminary fight and the actual fight Goku and Cell had.

[LightBing]

What Cell means its that Trunks was stronger than his warm up level which was enough to obliterate Vegeta.

The latter information confirms this.
After all Cell was stronger than Goku who at 50% shocks everyone, Trunks included.
It would be illogical for them to imagine Goku with the grades on top, since the story at this point already has presented the flaws from those forms highlighting the correct path Goku toke.

Even if you choose to ignore the above, Cell himself can use grade 3 rendering that line false. Pretty sure he even uses it in-front of Trunks to mock him.

[Kaboom]

Nah, at best Trunks was only stronger than the "warm-up" amount of strength that Cell was currently using. Later at the Cell Games, when Goku finally revealed his true power, he was plainly said to outstrip everyone else.

[Saturnine]

You're falling into a trap many DB fans fall into - forgetting that transformations are not the only occurences that modify characters' power levels. Freeza for example jumped from 530k to "over one million" when he transformed into his second form, but after that he powered up another time against Piccolo. People put his full power at anywhere between 1,2 and 1,4 billion at full power in that form.

Same thing happened with Semi-Perfect Cell. He got his arse handed to him by Super Vegeta at his standby power, so he powered up further. That power-up didn't close the magnitude of the gap between Vegeta and him, though, and Vegeta retained the advantage.

Same thing happened with Perfect Cell. When Cell said Trunks was stronger than him, he was referring to his current powerlevel - the "standby" powerlevel he rested at right after he absorbed Android #18. But we later found out that Cell had rather immense reserves - perhaps not quite as big as Freeza did compared to his standby power of 3 million, but great nonetheless. He first powered up for his match with Goku - at that point both he and full power Goku were already considerably greater in raw power than Grade 3 Trunks. But Perfect Cell had even more reserves - he only unleashed his full power against SSj2 Gohan, but Gohan became so powerful that even his huge power-up did him no good against Gohan.

So it goes like this: Perfect Cell (freshly transformed) = Grade 4 Goku (standby) < Grade 3 Trunks < Grade 4 Goku (Full Power) < Perfect Cell (powered up) <<<<<<<< Perfect Cell (Full Power) <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< SSj2 Gohan

Is this a hotly debated topic? I always thought it was pretty clearly the first option at least. Grade 3 is monstrously powerful, it's just monstrously slow as well. Trunks was directly stronger than (regular) Perfect Cell, but there's no point in having all the power in the world if you can't hit the guy. That was kinda the whole lesson.

People overestimate how powerful Grade 3 is (sometimes even putting it on par with SSj2 in power, or even above), and they also overestimate how much it slows down the user. If Grade 3 were as powerful as you say, characters would have realized its usefulness and take the form briefly for tanking attacks or amplifying their blows. Truth is, Grade 4 probably incorporates all the same power as Grade 3, minus the downsides. Also, in the manga neither Vegeta nor Trunks used even Grade 2 after their second visit to the RoSaT, suggesting it would have provided no benefit, as they chose to emulate Goku and Gohan's solution. The only reason Trunks and Vegeta emerged so weak is that they trained solo rather than sparring.

Keep in mind that one doesn't need to be drastically slower than someone else to not be able to hit them. Hell, Grade 3 wouldn't even need to make you slower in absolute terms, only in relative terms. When someone's powerlevel is say, 80, it's expected that their speed will also be 80. So if Cell's PL was 60, and his speed was also 60, even if Trunks' power was 80, but his speed 40, he still wouldn't be able to hit Cell no matter how hard he tried. People also forget that Super Vegeta, while weaker than Cell, was also slower than him simply on the virtue of having a lesser powerlevel.