Mistral Large 4 vs MiniMax M3
Mistral Large 4 took 51 min 22 s and $0.61 at list price, MiniMax M3 took 33 min 3 s and $0.21 at list price. Mistral Large 4 took 1.6× as long and cost 2.9× as much.
Mistral Large 4
Mistral · $2.10/M out · 4,689 HN pts
MiniMax M3
MiniMax · $1.20/M out · 144 HN pts
Pelican
Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle
Watch
Draw a mechanical wristwatch that shows the current local time, with a sweeping seconds hand and a date window. Make it look expensive.
Landing
Build the landing page for Lumen Cycles, a Copenhagen workshop that builds custom cargo bikes to order. Make it look like a real brand you would trust with 4,000 euros.
Breakout
Make a Breakout game I can play right now with the keyboard or the mouse. Give it several levels, a score and some juice.
Logo
Design a logo for Night Heron, an independent bookshop that only opens after dark.
About
Write the opening of the About us page for Patchbay, a three-person studio in Rotterdam that repairs vintage synthesizers. About 150 words.
Patchbay sits in a former warehouse on Rotterdam's northern edge, where the Maas meets the industrial harbour. Three of us work here—no more, no less—surrounded by oscilloscopes, desoldering stations, and the persistent hum of transformers. We repair vintage synthesizers. That is the whole business.
We are not a museum, and we are not a factory. Every Minimoog, ARP 2600, or Juno that crosses our bench receives the same stubborn attention: traced schematics, replaced capacitors, calibrated voltages, hours spent listening for the note that was never quite right. The machines arrive broken, silent, forgotten. They leave singing.
Rotterdam built its reputation on moving heavy things and keeping them moving. We apply the same pragmatism to circuits that predate us by forty years. If it made sound once, it can make sound again. That is the promise we keep, solder joint by solder joint.
Patchbay began in a cluttered apartment in Rotterdam, where three friends spent weekends coaxing old synthesizers back to life. What started as a shared obsession quickly outgrew the living room. In 2016, we opened our first proper workshop in a converted warehouse on the south side of the city, and we have been soldering, calibrating, and listening closely ever since.
We are a small team of three. Niels handles the analog work, coaxing warm tones from aging oscillators and reluctant filters. Marijn focuses on digital systems and the occasional stubborn MIDI quirk. Sanna manages restorations, sourcing rare components and keeping long projects on track. Between us, we have decades of experience with the machines that shaped electronic music.
Every synth that passes through our doors carries decades of sound inside it. Our job is to make sure that story continues.
Specs and numbers
| Mistral Large 4 | MiniMax M3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Mistral | MiniMax |
| Made in | France | China |
| Released | 6 Oct 2026 | 31 May 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $0.70 | $0.30 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $2.10 | $1.20 |
| Context | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Weights | open | open |
| Hacker News points | 4,689 | 144 |
| Time for the six prompts | 51 min 22 s | 33 min 3 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $0.61 | $0.21 |
MiniMax M3 was cheaper: $0.40 less at list price, and less on 4 of the 6 prompts. MiniMax M3 was faster: 18 min 20 s less in total, and faster on 4 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, both Breakout games play.
Rebuild this screen experiment: Mistral Large 4's rebuild matched the screenshot at 46%; MiniMax M3 was not in it. Tea Garden experiment: Mistral Large 4's game passed 2 of 5 checks; MiniMax M3 was not in it.