llama-3.1-8b-instant vs mistral-medium-3-5

Capability for the money

Not the same tier: mistral-medium-3-5 leads llama-3.1-8b-instant by 77.8 points on tool use (τ²-bench), for 52.2× the price.

1. Following instructions

   extraction, classification, sticking to a format

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

   mistral-medium-3-568.8%

   mistral-medium-3-5 +40.2

2. Tool use

   multi-step agent work against real tools

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

   mistral-medium-3-594.2%

   mistral-medium-3-5 +77.8

3. Hard reasoning

   graduate-level science and multi-step analysis

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

   mistral-medium-3-574.8%

   mistral-medium-3-5 +48.9

Averaged over the benchmarks both models sat, llama-3.1-8b-instant returns 411.0 points of pass rate per dollar of blended price against 26.4 — 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. No published coding score for one of these models, so that lens is omitted. And a benchmark is not your workload — it narrows the shortlist, it does not pick for you.