Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Mistral Large 3
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Mistral Large 3 by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 48.3 points higher (57.6 vs 9.3) but costs 188× as much to run the benchmark ($8708 vs $46.4; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 9.3, and Mistral Large 3 when 9.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Mistral Large 3 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.6 | 9.3 | −83.9% Mistral Large 3 is 83.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $8,708.20 | $46.41 | −99.5% Mistral Large 3 is 99.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 670.18s | 7.23s | −98.9% Mistral Large 3 is 98.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.50 / $1.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Large 3 vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 83.9% less intelligence, 99.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 98.9% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Mistral Large 3 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Medium) scores 29.90 for $31.2.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)Mistral Large 3Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights 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-5-5/mistral-large-3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/mistral-large-3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill