Step 3.5 Flash vs Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

Step 3.5 Flash is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 66 to 35. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Step 3.5 Flash's sharpest advantage is in multilingual, where it averages 82.8 against 42. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU-ProX, 81 to 42.

Step 3.5 Flash is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.10 input / $0.30 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. Step 3.5 Flash gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 64K for Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1.

Quick Verdict

Pick Step 3.5 Flash if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1 only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill.

Agentic

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

60.2

Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1

31.8

62
Terminal-Bench 2.0
35
66
BrowseComp
32
54
OSWorld-Verified
28

Coding

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

47.1

Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1

40

77
HumanEval
54.8
48
SWE-bench Verified
Coming soon
45
LiveCodeBench
Coming soon
49
SWE-bench Pro
40

Multimodal & Grounded

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

66.7

Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1

35.5

64
MMMU-Pro
35
70
OfficeQA Pro
36

Reasoning

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

78.3

Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1

38.6

82
SimpleQA
Coming soon
82
MuSR
Coming soon
83
BBH
Coming soon
74
LongBench v2
39
73
MRCRv2
38

Knowledge

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

60.8

Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1

53

84
MMLU
71.4
83
GPQA
Coming soon
81
SuperGPQA
Coming soon
79
OpenBookQA
Coming soon
76
MMLU-Pro
Coming soon
12
HLE
Coming soon
71
FrontierScience
53

Instruction Following

Coming soon

Comparable scores for this category are coming soon. One or both models do not have sourced results here yet.

87
IFEval
Coming soon

Multilingual

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

82.8

Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1

42

86
MGSM
Coming soon
81
MMLU-ProX
42

Mathematics

Coming soon

Comparable scores for this category are coming soon. One or both models do not have sourced results here yet.

85
AIME 2023
Coming soon
87
AIME 2024
Coming soon
86
AIME 2025
Coming soon
81
HMMT Feb 2023
Coming soon
83
HMMT Feb 2024
Coming soon
82
HMMT Feb 2025
Coming soon
84
BRUMO 2025
Coming soon
85
MATH-500
Coming soon

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Step 3.5 Flash or Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1?

Step 3.5 Flash is ahead overall, 66 to 35. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU-ProX, where the scores are 81 and 42.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.8 versus 53. Inside this category, FrontierScience is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Step 3.5 Flash or Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 47.1 versus 40. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Step 3.5 Flash or Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 78.3 versus 38.6. Inside this category, LongBench v2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.2 versus 31.8. Inside this category, BrowseComp is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 66.7 versus 35.5. Inside this category, OfficeQA Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Mixtral 8x22B Instruct v0.1?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.8 versus 42. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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