Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) vs Ministral 3 3B
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) by Anthropic or Ministral 3 3B 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 (Xhigh) scores 44.9 points higher (49.7 vs 4.8) but costs 480× as much to run the benchmark ($5868 vs $12.2; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 4.8, and Ministral 3 3B when 4.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) | Ministral 3 3B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.7 | 4.8 | −90.3% Ministral 3 3B is 90.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,867.76 | $12.23 | −99.8% Ministral 3 3B is 99.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 40.34s | 3.13s | −92.2% Ministral 3 3B is 92.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.10 / $0.10 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Ministral 3 3B vs Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh): 90.3% less intelligence, 99.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 92.2% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Ministral 3 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh)Ministral 3 3BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-xhigh/ministral-3-3b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-xhigh/ministral-3-3b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill