Noometry

Model comparison

Grok 4.6 vs Mistral Small 3

Grok 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.9 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 52× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 20 shared benchmarks.

Grok 4.6 xAI

56.9

Rank #21 Confirmed

Mistral Small 3 Mistral AI

31.2

Rank #278 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok 4.6 scores higher in 8 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Grok 4.6 leads 67.0 to 16.3.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 99.2% for Grok 4.6 and 6.7% for Mistral Small 3.
  • Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Grok 4.6.
  • Grok 4.6 accepts more context: 500K tokens versus 33K.
  • Mistral Small 3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Grok 4.6Mistral Small 3
ProviderxAIMistral AI
Noometry Index56.931.2
Released2026-08-122025-01-30
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window500K33K
Max output500K16K
Input $ / M tokens$2$0.05
Output $ / M tokens$6$0.08
Results tracked4924

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Category by category

Coding Grok 4.6 leads

Grok 4.6: 58.5 (#16), Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207)

BenchmarkGrok 4.6Mistral Small 3
LMArena Coding14651246
DeepSWE67.5%—
FrontierCode48%—
CursorBench41.4%—
LMArena WebDev1617—
FrontierSWE25.3%—
SciCode56.5%—
WeirdML67.3%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—45.3%
BigCodeBench Complete—50.4%
ALE-Bench1,508—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Grok 4.6: 39.4 (#27), Mistral Small 3: —

BenchmarkGrok 4.6Mistral Small 3
APEX-Agents65.3%—
GDP.pdf17.2%—
Vending-Bench 29,047—

Reasoning Grok 4.6 leads

Grok 4.6: 61.4 (#20), Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273)

BenchmarkGrok 4.6Mistral Small 3
Chess Puzzles40%0%
LMArena Hard Prompts14471233
Epoch Capabilities Index156.44127.07
ARC-AGI-267.1%—
SimpleBench75.9%—
NYT Connections (extended)80%—
ARC-AGI-187.5%—
CritPt19.7%—
EBR-Bench30.5%—
Mystery Game Puzzles34%—
DTBench97.3%—
LMCA48.5%—

Math Grok 4.6 leads

Grok 4.6: 67.0 (#24), Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295)

BenchmarkGrok 4.6Mistral Small 3
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202599.2%6.7%
LMArena Math14231240
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)66%—
FrontierMath Tier 431.7%—
ProofBench51%—

Knowledge Grok 4.6 leads

Grok 4.6: 63.3 (#20), Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263)

BenchmarkGrok 4.6Mistral Small 3
GPQA Diamond94%47.3%
LMArena Expert14671202
SimpleQA Verified49.3%—
Confabulations—25.2%

Multimodal Not comparable

Grok 4.6: 43.6 (#23), Mistral Small 3: —

BenchmarkGrok 4.6Mistral Small 3
LMArena Vision1263—
Blueprint-Bench 233.2%—
Furniture Assembly40%—
LMArena Document1452—

Multilingual Grok 4.6 leads

Grok 4.6: 53.0 (#74), Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236)

BenchmarkGrok 4.6Mistral Small 3
LMArena Non-English14201198
LMArena Chinese14801204
LMArena French14611203
LMArena German14311211
LMArena Japanese13761111
LMArena Korean13971188
LMArena Russian14221216
LMArena Spanish1404—

Instruction Following Grok 4.6 leads

Grok 4.6: 75.4 (#63), Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229)

BenchmarkGrok 4.6Mistral Small 3
LMArena Instruction Following14311214

Long Context Grok 4.6 leads

Grok 4.6: 44.5 (#66), Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211)

BenchmarkGrok 4.6Mistral Small 3
LMArena Longer Query14541246

Writing & Preference Grok 4.6 leads

Grok 4.6: 62.3 (#80), Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280)

BenchmarkGrok 4.6Mistral Small 3
LMArena Text14281234
LMArena Creative Writing14281195
LMArena Multi-Turn14251217
EQ-Bench Creative Writing—707

Frequently asked questions

Is Grok 4.6 better than Mistral Small 3?

Grok 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.9 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 52× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Grok 4.6 or Mistral Small 3?

Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Grok 4.6 lists at $2 and $6.

Is Grok 4.6 or Mistral Small 3 better for coding?

Grok 4.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 58.5 versus 36.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Grok 4.6 does, with 500K tokens against 33K.

How many benchmarks do Grok 4.6 and Mistral Small 3 share?

20 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok 4.6 has 49 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.

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