Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Mistral Large 4 Preview
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Mistral Large 4 Preview by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 19.2 points higher (57.6 vs 38.4) but costs 5.4× as much to run the benchmark ($8708 vs $1608; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 38.4, and Mistral Large 4 Preview when 38.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Mistral Large 4 Preview | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.6 | 38.4 | −33.3% Mistral Large 4 Previ… is 33.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $8,708.20 | $1,607.86 | −81.5% Mistral Large 4 Previ… is 81.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 609.14s | 25.73s | −95.8% Mistral Large 4 Previ… is 95.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $1.36 / $4.18 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Large 4 Preview vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 33.3% less intelligence, 81.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 95.8% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Mistral Large 4 Preview is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/mistral-large-4 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/mistral-large-4?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill