Mistral Large 3 vs Qwen3.8 Max
Which is better for the money: Mistral Large 3 by Mistral or Qwen3.8 Max by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8 Max scores 30.9 points higher (40.2 vs 9.3) but costs 68× as much to run the benchmark ($3172 vs $46.4; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max when you need intelligence above 9.3, and Mistral Large 3 when 9.3 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Large 3 | Qwen3.8 Max | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.3 | 40.2 | +332.3% Qwen3.8 Max is 4.3× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $46.41 | $3,172.37 | +6735.5% Qwen3.8 Max is 68× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 7.23s | 64.64s | +794.1% Qwen3.8 Max is 794.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.50 / $1.50 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 Max vs Mistral Large 3: 332.3% more intelligence, 6735.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 794.1% 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 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Mistral Large 3Qwen3.8 MaxToday'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-0803 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-large-3/qwen3-8-max-0803?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill