Mistral Large 3 vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Mistral Large 3 by Mistral or Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) by Alibaba? 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
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) scores 18.3 points higher (27.6 vs 9.3) but costs 25× as much to run the benchmark ($1165 vs $46.4; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) when you need intelligence above 9.3, and Mistral Large 3 when 9.3 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Large 3 | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.3 | 27.6 | +196.8% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 3.0× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $46.41 | $1,165.00 | +2410.2% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 25× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 7.18s | 55.12s | +667.7% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 667.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.50 / $1.50 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) vs Mistral Large 3: 196.8% more intelligence, 2410.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 667.7% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mistral Large 3 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Medium) scores 29.90 for $31.2.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Mistral Large 3Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)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/mistral-large-3/qwen3-8-27b-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-large-3/qwen3-8-27b-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill