Ministral 3 8B vs Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Ministral 3 8B by Mistral or Muse Spark 1.3 (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 1.3 (Xhigh) scores 39.6 points higher (45.1 vs 5.5) but costs 86× as much to run the benchmark ($2359 vs $27.5; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 5.5, and Ministral 3 8B when 5.5 is enough.
| Metric | Ministral 3 8B | Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 5.5 | 45.1 | +720.0% Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh) is 8.2× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $27.47 | $2,358.74 | +8486.6% Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh) is 86× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.35s | 28.35s | +429.9% Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh) is 429.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.15 / $0.15 | $1.25 / $4.25 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh) vs Ministral 3 8B: 720.0% more intelligence, 8486.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 429.9% 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 1.3 (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
Ministral 3 8BMuse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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