Llama 3 70B Instruct vs Mixtral 8x7B
Llama 3 70B Instruct (2024) and Mixtral 8x7B (2023) are compact production models from AI at Meta and MistralAI. Llama 3 70B Instruct ships a 8k-token context window, while Mixtral 8x7B ships a 32k-token context window. On HumanEval, Mixtral 8x7B leads by 7.9 pts. On pricing, Mixtral 8x7B costs $0.15/1M input tokens versus $0.40/1M for the alternative. This comparison covers specs, pricing, API access, capabilities, benchmarks, input and output token costs, and production fit for coding and agent workloads.
Mixtral 8x7B is ~167% cheaper at $0.15/1M; pay for Llama 3 70B Instruct only for provider fit.
Decision scorecard
Local evidence first| Signal | Llama 3 70B Instruct | Mixtral 8x7B |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | provider-routed production | provider-routed production |
| Decision fit | Coding, Classification, and JSON / Tool use | Coding and Classification |
| Context window | 8k | 32k |
| Cheapest output | $0.40/1M tokens | $0.45/1M tokens |
| Provider routes | 18 tracked | 18 tracked |
| Shared benchmarks | 2 shared | HumanEval leader |
Decision tradeoffs
- Llama 3 70B Instruct holds a shared-benchmark lead on Massive Multitask Language Understanding, ahead by 1.8 points.
- Llama 3 70B Instruct has the lower cheapest tracked output price at $0.40/1M tokens.
- Llama 3 70B Instruct uniquely exposes Structured outputs in local model data.
- Local decision data tags Llama 3 70B Instruct for Coding, Classification, and JSON / Tool use.
- Mixtral 8x7B holds a shared-benchmark lead on HumanEval, ahead by 7.9 points.
- Mixtral 8x7B has the larger context window for long prompts, retrieval packs, or transcript analysis.
- Local decision data tags Mixtral 8x7B for Coding and Classification.
Monthly cost at traffic
Estimate token spend from the cheapest tracked input and output route or tier on this page.
Llama 3 70B Instruct
$420
Cheapest tracked route/tier: Hyperbolic AI Inference
Mixtral 8x7B
$233
Cheapest tracked route/tier: Mistral AI Studio
Estimated monthly gap: $188. Batch, cache, alternate speed tiers, and negotiated pricing are excluded from this local estimate.
Switch friction
- Provider overlap exists on Databricks Foundation Model Serving, NVIDIA NIM, and GCP Vertex AI; start route-level A/B tests there.
- Mixtral 8x7B is $0.05/1M tokens higher on cheapest tracked output pricing, so quality gains need to justify the spend.
- Check replacement coverage for Structured outputs before moving production traffic.
- Provider overlap exists on GCP Vertex AI, AWS Bedrock, and Microsoft Foundry; start route-level A/B tests there.
- Llama 3 70B Instruct is $0.05/1M tokens lower on cheapest tracked output pricing before cache, batch, or negotiated discounts.
- Llama 3 70B Instruct adds Structured outputs in local capability data.
Specs
| Specification | ||
|---|---|---|
| Released | 2024-04-18 | 2023-12-11 |
| Context window | 8k | 32k |
| Parameters | 70B | 8x7B |
| Architecture | Decoder Only | Mixture of Experts |
| License | Llama 3 Community | Apache 2.0OSI-approved |
| Openness | Open weights | Open source |
| Weights | Available | Unknown |
| Code | Unknown | Unknown |
| Commercial use | Commercial use: conditional | Commercial use: permitted |
| Knowledge cutoff | 2023-12 | 2023-12 |
Pricing and availability
| Pricing attribute | Llama 3 70B Instruct | Mixtral 8x7B |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.40/1M tokens | $0.15/1M tokens |
| Output price | $0.40/1M tokens | $0.45/1M tokens |
| Providers |
Capabilities
| Capability | Llama 3 70B Instruct | Mixtral 8x7B |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | No | No |
| Multimodal | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | No |
| JSON / Tool use | No | No |
| Structured outputs | Yes | No |
| Code execution | No | No |
| IDE integration | No | No |
| Computer use | No | No |
| Parallel agents | No | No |
Benchmarks
| Benchmark | Llama 3 70B Instruct | Mixtral 8x7B |
|---|---|---|
| HumanEval | 72.6 | 80.5 |
| Massive Multitask Language Understanding | 82.0 | 80.2 |
Continue comparing
- Llama 3 70B Instruct vs Qwen2-7B-Instruct
- Llama 3 70B Instruct vs Llama 3.1 70B Instruct
- Llama 3 70B Instruct vs Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct
- Llama 3 70B Instruct vs Qwen3.6-27B
- DeepSeek V4 Flash vs Llama 3 70B Instruct
- Mistral Large 2 vs Mixtral 8x7B
- Llama 3 70B Instruct vs Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
- DeepSeek V4 Pro vs Llama 3 70B Instruct
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Last reviewed: 2026-07-11. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.