ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning vs Mistral Large 3: which model should you choose?
We compared ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning 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 Reasoning
ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning is a multimodal model from Baidu. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $14.36 per million input tokens and $78.75 per million output tokens, and averages 79.8 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $14.36 / 1M
- Output
- $78.75 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 79.8
- 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 Reasoning | Mistral Large 3 | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $14.36 | $5.41 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $78.75 | $23.83 | B |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 128,000 | A |
| Max output | 8,192 | 4,096 | A |
| Average score | 79.8 | 81.7 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1421.5 | 1448.6 | B |
| Open weights | No | Yes | B |
Benchmark comparison
ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning wins 0, Mistral Large 3 wins 12, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning | Mistral Large 3 | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 80.6 | 84.6 | 4.0 | Mistral Large 3 |
| GPQA Diamond | 75.7 | 79.6 | 3.9 | Mistral Large 3 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 69.8 | 71.3 | 1.5 | Mistral Large 3 |
| HumanEval | 85.0 | 88.6 | 3.6 | Mistral Large 3 |
| MATH-500 | 82.5 | 84.1 | 1.6 | Mistral Large 3 |
| AIME 2025 | 78.1 | 78.3 | 0.2 | Mistral Large 3 |
| LiveCodeBench | 71.9 | 74.4 | 2.5 | Mistral Large 3 |
| IFEval | 88.7 | 89.8 | 1.1 | Mistral Large 3 |
| TruthfulQA | 82.9 | 83.7 | 0.8 | Mistral Large 3 |
| HellaSwag | 88.0 | 88.2 | 0.2 | Mistral Large 3 |
| MMMU | 74.4 | 76.2 | 1.8 | Mistral Large 3 |
| Arena Elo | 1421.5 | 1448.6 | 27.1 | Mistral Large 3 |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning costs about $30.46 per million tokens and Mistral Large 3 costs about $10.02. Mistral Large 3 is roughly 67% cheaper than ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Mistral Large 3. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning wins 0, Mistral Large 3 wins 12, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Mistral Large 3 leads ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning by 1.9 points (81.7 versus 79.8).
The price picture favours Mistral Large 3. The context picture favours ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning. 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 Reasoning if
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 8,192-token output limit.
- The workload needs multi-step reasoning.
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 Reasoning better than Mistral Large 3?
On the index average, Mistral Large 3 leads ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning by 1.9 points (81.7 versus 79.8). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning wins 0 benchmarks, Mistral Large 3 wins 12.
Which is cheaper, ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning or Mistral Large 3?
Mistral Large 3 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $10.02 per million tokens, versus $30.46 for ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning.
Which has the larger context window?
ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Mistral Large 3 has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
ERNIE 4.5 Reasoning 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.