# Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) vs Mistral Small 3

> Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.6 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 27× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/grok-4-20-vs-mistral-small-3
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 21

## Summary

- They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) scores higher in 8 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads 65.7 to 32.2.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 92.2% for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) and 6.7% for Mistral Small 3.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $1.25 / $2.50 for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning).
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 33K.
- Mistral Small 3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 48.6 | 31.2 |
| Rank | 54 | 278 |
| Context | 1M | 33K |
| Input $/M | $1.25 | $0.05 |
| Output $/M | $2.50 | $0.08 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 42.1 (#112)
- Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1459 | 1246 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1375 | — |
| WeirdML | 52.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.3% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 50.4% |
| ALE-Bench | 1,150 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 34.4 (#46)
- Mistral Small 3: —

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 57.3% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 18% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1189 | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 4,663 | — |

## Reasoning

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.3 (#32)
- Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 24% | 0% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1451 | 1233 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 151.98 | 127.07 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 65.1% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 75% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 85.4% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 89.5% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 63.8% | — |
| DTBench | 90.1% | — |
| LMCA | 38.7% | — |
| ForecastBench | 61.4 | — |

## Math

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 48.2 (#65)
- Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 92.2% | 6.7% |
| LMArena Math | 1455 | 1240 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 44.9% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 17.1% | — |
| ProofBench | 14% | — |

## Knowledge

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.8 (#60)
- Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 89.3% | 47.3% |
| LMArena Expert | 1439 | 1202 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 30.2% | — |
| Confabulations | — | 25.2% |

## Multimodal

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 33.3 (#98)
- Mistral Small 3: —

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1263 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 0% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1416 | — |

## Multilingual

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 54.5 (#40)
- Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1441 | 1198 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1481 | 1204 |
| LMArena French | 1476 | 1203 |
| LMArena German | 1465 | 1211 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1449 | 1111 |
| LMArena Korean | 1417 | 1188 |
| LMArena Russian | 1458 | 1216 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1443 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 74.8 (#83)
- Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1420 | 1214 |

## Long Context

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 45.5 (#34)
- Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1437 | 1246 |
| CL-bench | 22.2% | — |
| CL-bench Life | 11.9% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 65.7 (#44)
- Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1451 | 1234 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1438 | 1195 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1574 | 707 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1456 | 1217 |

## FAQ

### Is Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) better than Mistral Small 3?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.6 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 27× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) 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 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) lists at $1.25 and $2.50.

### Is Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) or Mistral Small 3 better for coding?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.1 versus 36.5 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) does, with 1M tokens against 33K.

### How many benchmarks do Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) and Mistral Small 3 share?

21 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) has 46 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.