llama-3.1-8b-instant vs mistral-large-3

Capability for the money

Not the same tier: mistral-large-3 leads llama-3.1-8b-instant by 42.1 points on hard reasoning (GPQA Diamond), for 13.0× the price.

1. Following instructions

   extraction, classification, sticking to a format

   IFBench
   llama-3.1-8b-instant28.6%

   mistral-large-336.2%

   mistral-large-3 +7.6

2. Coding

   writing and fixing code

   LiveCodeBench
   llama-3.1-8b-instant11.6%

   mistral-large-346.5%

   mistral-large-3 +34.9

3. Tool use

   multi-step agent work against real tools

   τ²-bench
   llama-3.1-8b-instant16.4%

   mistral-large-324.6%

   mistral-large-3 +8.2

4. Hard reasoning

   graduate-level science and multi-step analysis

   GPQA Diamond
   llama-3.1-8b-instant25.9%

   mistral-large-368.0%

   mistral-large-3 +42.1

Averaged over the benchmarks both models sat, llama-3.1-8b-instant returns 358.7 points of pass rate per dollar of blended price against 58.4 — the ratio that decides whether the dearer model earns its rate.

Each figure is a pass rate: the share of that test set the model answered correctly, measured by a third party rather than self-reported by the lab. Rows are different tests of different difficulty, so compare a model against the other model, not one row against the next. And a benchmark is not your workload — it narrows the shortlist, it does not pick for you.