Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) vs Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) by SpaceXAI or Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) 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
Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) scores 32.9 points higher (44.2 vs 11.3) but costs 53× as much to run the benchmark ($2242 vs $42.5; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 11.3, and Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) when 11.3 is enough.
| Metric | Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) | Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.2 | 11.3 | −74.4% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 74.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,241.91 | $42.50 | −98.1% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 98.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 32.45s | 14.50s | −55.3% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 55.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $6.00 | $0.15 / $0.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) vs Grok 4.6 (Xhigh): 74.4% less intelligence, 98.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 55.3% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Medium) scores 29.90 for $31.2.
Grok 4.6 (Xhigh)Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)Today'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/grok-4-6-xhigh/mistral-small-4 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-6-xhigh/mistral-small-4?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill