Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs Mistral Large 4 Preview
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or Mistral Large 4 Preview by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) scores 3.4 points higher (41.8 vs 38.4) but costs 4.3× as much to run the benchmark ($6874 vs $1608; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) when you need intelligence above 38.4, and Mistral Large 4 Preview when 38.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | Mistral Large 4 Preview | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 38.4 | −8.1% Mistral Large 4 Previ… is 8.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $1,607.86 | −76.6% Mistral Large 4 Previ… is 76.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 36.92s | 27.12s | −26.5% Mistral Large 4 Previ… is 26.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $1.36 / $4.18 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Large 4 Preview vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 8.1% less intelligence, 76.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 26.5% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Mistral Large 4 Preview is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)Mistral Large 4 PreviewToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/mistral-large-4 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/mistral-large-4?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill