Ministral 3 8B vs Qwen3.8 Max
Which is better for the money: Ministral 3 8B by Mistral or Qwen3.8 Max by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8 Max scores 34.7 points higher (40.2 vs 5.5) but costs 115× as much to run the benchmark ($3172 vs $27.5; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max when you need intelligence above 5.5, and Ministral 3 8B when 5.5 is enough.
| Metric | Ministral 3 8B | Qwen3.8 Max | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 5.5 | 40.2 | +630.9% Qwen3.8 Max is 7.3× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $27.47 | $3,172.37 | +11448.5% Qwen3.8 Max is 115× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.36s | 62.08s | +1058.2% Qwen3.8 Max is 1058.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.15 / $0.15 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 Max vs Ministral 3 8B: 630.9% more intelligence, 11448.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 1058.2% 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.
- Qwen3.8 Max is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Ministral 3 8BQwen3.8 MaxToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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