Mistral Large 4 (Medium) vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: Mistral Large 4 (Medium) by Mistral or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-30.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores 10.5 points higher (33.6 vs 23.1) but costs 6.8× as much to run the benchmark ($6354 vs $936; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 23.1, and Mistral Large 4 (Medium) when 23.1 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Large 4 (Medium) | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 23.1 | 33.6 | +45.5% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 45.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $936.36 | $6,353.83 | +578.6% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 6.8× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | Not reported | 64.42s | — not comparable |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.70 / $2.10 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs Mistral Large 4 (Medium): 45.5% more intelligence, 578.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and end-to-end time not fully reported.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mistral Large 4 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 52.30 for $718.
- Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 57.00 for $4766.
Mistral Large 4 (Medium)Qwen3.8 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-4-medium/qwen3-8-max · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-large-4-medium/qwen3-8-max?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill