ERNIE 4.5 Max vs Mistral Large 3: which model should you choose?
We compared ERNIE 4.5 Max and Mistral Large 3 on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Mistral Large 3 has the stronger average benchmark score; Mistral Large 3 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
ERNIE 4.5 Max
ERNIE 4.5 Max is a multimodal model from Baidu. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $14.41 per million input tokens and $53.71 per million output tokens, and averages 80.6 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $14.41 / 1M
- Output
- $53.71 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 80.6
- Open weights
- No
Mistral Large 3
Mistral Large 3 is a multimodal model from Mistral AI. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $5.41 per million input tokens and $23.83 per million output tokens, and averages 81.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.41 / 1M
- Output
- $23.83 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 81.7
- Open weights
- Yes
Specification comparison
| Spec | ERNIE 4.5 Max | Mistral Large 3 | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $14.41 | $5.41 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $53.71 | $23.83 | B |
| Context window | 128,000 | 128,000 | Tie |
| Max output | 65,536 | 4,096 | A |
| Average score | 80.6 | 81.7 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1423.7 | 1448.6 | B |
| Open weights | No | Yes | B |
Benchmark comparison
ERNIE 4.5 Max wins 3, Mistral Large 3 wins 9, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | ERNIE 4.5 Max | Mistral Large 3 | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 80.8 | 84.6 | 3.8 | Mistral Large 3 |
| GPQA Diamond | 76.4 | 79.6 | 3.2 | Mistral Large 3 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 68.9 | 71.3 | 2.4 | Mistral Large 3 |
| HumanEval | 87.7 | 88.6 | 0.9 | Mistral Large 3 |
| MATH-500 | 84.2 | 84.1 | 0.1 | ERNIE 4.5 Max |
| AIME 2025 | 79.5 | 78.3 | 1.2 | ERNIE 4.5 Max |
| LiveCodeBench | 73.0 | 74.4 | 1.4 | Mistral Large 3 |
| IFEval | 87.1 | 89.8 | 2.7 | Mistral Large 3 |
| TruthfulQA | 83.6 | 83.7 | 0.1 | Mistral Large 3 |
| HellaSwag | 87.7 | 88.2 | 0.5 | Mistral Large 3 |
| MMMU | 78.1 | 76.2 | 1.9 | ERNIE 4.5 Max |
| Arena Elo | 1423.7 | 1448.6 | 24.9 | Mistral Large 3 |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, ERNIE 4.5 Max costs about $24.23 per million tokens and Mistral Large 3 costs about $10.02. Mistral Large 3 is roughly 59% cheaper than ERNIE 4.5 Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Both models list a 128,000-token context window. That is enough for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, ERNIE 4.5 Max wins 3, Mistral Large 3 wins 9, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Mistral Large 3 leads ERNIE 4.5 Max by 1.1 points (81.7 versus 80.6).
The price picture favours Mistral Large 3. The context picture is effectively a tie. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.
If you need a single default, start with Mistral Large 3 for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose ERNIE 4.5 Max if
- You need the larger 65,536-token output limit.
Choose Mistral Large 3 if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need open weights for self-hosting or fine-tuning.
FAQ
Is ERNIE 4.5 Max better than Mistral Large 3?
On the index average, Mistral Large 3 leads ERNIE 4.5 Max by 1.1 points (81.7 versus 80.6). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. ERNIE 4.5 Max wins 3 benchmarks, Mistral Large 3 wins 9.
Which is cheaper, ERNIE 4.5 Max or Mistral Large 3?
Mistral Large 3 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $10.02 per million tokens, versus $24.23 for ERNIE 4.5 Max.
Which has the larger context window?
Both models list a 128,000-token context window.
Are these models open weights?
ERNIE 4.5 Max is proprietary; Mistral Large 3 is open weights.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Mistral Large 3 for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.