Claude Opus 5 (Max) vs Ministral 3 8B
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Max) by Anthropic or Ministral 3 8B by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Max) scores 45.3 points higher (50.8 vs 5.5) but costs 265× as much to run the benchmark ($7275 vs $27.5; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 5.5, and Ministral 3 8B when 5.5 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Max) | Ministral 3 8B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 50.8 | 5.5 | −89.2% Ministral 3 8B is 89.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,274.74 | $27.47 | −99.6% Ministral 3 8B is 99.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 50.36s | 5.40s | −89.3% Ministral 3 8B is 89.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.15 / $0.15 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Ministral 3 8B vs Claude Opus 5 (Max): 89.2% less intelligence, 99.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 89.3% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- 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 (Max)Ministral 3 8BToday'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/ministral-3-8b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5/ministral-3-8b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill