Mistral Large 3 vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: Mistral Large 3 by Mistral or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores 36.1 points higher (45.4 vs 9.3) but costs 106× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $46.4; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 9.3, and Mistral Large 3 when 9.3 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Large 3 | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.3 | 45.4 | +388.2% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 4.9× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $46.41 | $4,934.79 | +10533.0% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 106× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 7.23s | 65.39s | +804.4% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 804.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.50 / $1.50 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs Mistral Large 3: 388.2% more intelligence, 10533.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 804.4% 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 Max (0902) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Mistral Large 3Qwen3.8 Max (0902)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/mistral-large-3/qwen3-8-max · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-large-3/qwen3-8-max?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill