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MetaLlama-3.1 405BVSMistral AIMistral Small 4

Analysis by:the whichllmmodel Editorial Team|Updated: June 2026

Our Take

We recommend Mistral Small 4 for practical local execution on standard developer hardware, or Llama-3.1 405B if you need peak reasoning and have the VRAM (or a cloud API) to host it. While Llama-3.1 405B offers frontier capability, its massive parameter size makes it extremely difficult to host locally. Choose Mistral Small 4 for standard local setups, or Llama-3.1 405B for peak reasoning.
WHY?
Benchmark Calculations & Evidence:
  • Model Size: Llama-3.1 405B is a massive 405B parameter model requiring heavy GPU infrastructure, while Mistral Small 4 is a 119B parameter model.
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    Model Specs

    Llama-3.1 405B

    Open Source

    Benchmarks & Scores

    Coding (human-eval)
    89%

    basic standalone code completion and simple functions

    Reasoning (gpqa-diamond)
    50.7%

    graduate-level science QA

    Cost & Context

    Cost (per 1M tokens)
    Self HostLocal execution (zero API fees)
    Context Window
    131.07k tokens
    Model Specs

    Mistral Small 4

    Open SourceAPI Available

    Benchmarks & Scores

    Coding (live-code-bench)
    63.6%

    scripting single-file apps or clearly defined functions

    Reasoning (gpqa-diamond)Winner (+20.5%)
    71.2%

    graduate-level science QA

    Cost & Context

    Cost (per 1M tokens)
    $0.26Input: $0.15 | Output: $0.60
    Context WindowLarger
    262.14k tokens

    Frequently Asked Questions about Llama-3.1 405B vs Mistral Small 4

    For coding tasks, Llama-3.1 405B scores 89% on human-eval (basic standalone code completion and simple functions), while Mistral Small 4 scores 63.6% on live-code-bench (scripting single-file apps or clearly defined functions).

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