Ministral 3 8B vs Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Ministral 3 8B by Mistral or Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) by Meta? 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
Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) scores 34.1 points higher (39.6 vs 5.5) but costs 50× as much to run the benchmark ($1385 vs $27.5; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 5.5, and Ministral 3 8B when 5.5 is enough.
| Metric | Ministral 3 8B | Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 5.5 | 39.6 | +620.0% Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) is 7.2× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $27.47 | $1,385.40 | +4943.3% Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) is 50× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.94s | 21.43s | +333.8% Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) is 333.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.15 / $0.15 | $1.25 / $4.25 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) vs Ministral 3 8B: 620.0% more intelligence, 4943.3% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 333.8% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Ministral 3 8B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Ministral 3 8BMuse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh)Today'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/ministral-3-8b/muse-spark-1-2 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/ministral-3-8b/muse-spark-1-2?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill