Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Ministral 3 8B
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Ministral 3 8B by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… scores 50.5 points higher (56.0 vs 5.5) but costs 148× as much to run the benchmark ($4057 vs $27.5; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 5.5, and Ministral 3 8B when 5.5 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Ministral 3 8B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 5.5 | −90.2% Ministral 3 8B is 90.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,056.65 | $27.47 | −99.3% Ministral 3 8B is 99.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 127.77s | 5.35s | −95.8% Ministral 3 8B is 95.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.15 / $0.15 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Ministral 3 8B vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 90.2% less intelligence, 99.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 95.8% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Ministral 3 8B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Ministral 3 8BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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