Mistral Small 3.1 vs Trinity Large Thinking
Which is better for the money: Mistral Small 3.1 by Mistral or Trinity Large Thinking by Arcee AI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-09-09.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Trinity Large Thinking scores 3.5 points higher (10.9 vs 7.4) but costs 14× as much to run the benchmark ($518 vs $35.8; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Trinity Large Thinking when you need intelligence above 7.4, and Mistral Small 3.1 when 7.4 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Small 3.1 | Trinity Large Thinking | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 7.4 | 10.9 | +47.3% Trinity Large Thinking is 47.3% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $35.76 | $518.07 | +1348.7% Trinity Large Thinking is 14× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.09s | 8.78s | +114.7% Trinity Large Thinking is 114.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.30 | $0.25 / $0.90 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Trinity Large Thinking vs Mistral Small 3.1: 47.3% more intelligence, 1348.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 114.7% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mistral Small 3.1 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Granite 4.2 3B scores 9.10 for $14.9.
- Trinity Large Thinking is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GLM-5.3-Flash scores 41.90 for $280.
Mistral Small 3.1Trinity Large ThinkingToday'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-small-3-1/trinity-large-thinking · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-small-3-1/trinity-large-thinking?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill