Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct vs GPT-5 Chat vs Pixtral Large (25.02)
Too close to call on our weighted score (GPT-5 Chat 34, Pixtral Large (25.02) 33, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct 28). The right pick depends on what you value most.
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
28/100- ECI—
- Price$1.50 / $7.50
- Context262K
OpenAIGPT-5 Chat
34/100- ECI—
- Price$1.25 / $10.00
- Context400K
Mistral AIPixtral Large (25.02)
33/100- ECI—
- Price$2.00 / $6.00
- Context128K
Too close to call
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 1 points (GPT-5 Chat 34/100, Pixtral Large (25.02) 33/100, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct 28/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct on price and GPT-5 Chat for long inputs. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
- CapabilityNot enough dataNo independent benchmark covers every model here yet
- Lowest priceQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct and Pixtral Large (25.02)Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct $3.00 · Pixtral Large (25.02) $3.00 · GPT-5 Chat $3.44 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextGPT-5 ChatGPT-5 Chat 400,000 · Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct 262,144 · Pixtral Large (25.02) 128,000 tokens
- Widest inputsGPT-5 Chat and Pixtral Large (25.02)Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: Text · GPT-5 Chat: Text, Images · Pixtral Large (25.02): Text, Images
- Self-hostingQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B InstructPublishes downloadable weights
| Measure | Weight | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct | GPT-5 Chat | Pixtral Large (25.02) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | 50% | 27 | 24 | 27 |
| Inputs & features | 30% | 25 | 45 | 50 |
| Context window | 20% | 37 | 44 | 24 |
| Overall | 100% | 28/100 | 34/100 | 33/100 |
Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability. The remaining weights were rescaled.
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B InstructAlibaba (Qwen) | GPT-5 ChatOpenAI | Pixtral Large (25.02)Mistral AI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | — | — | — |
| ECI rank | — | — | — |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $1.50 | $1.25 (best) | $2.00 |
| Output | $7.50 | $10.00 | $6.00 (best) |
| Cached input | — | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $3.00 (best) | $3.44 | $3.00 (best) |
| Long-context rate | Over 32K: $2.70 / $13.50 | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Alibaba API | Median of 2 providers | Median of 3 providers |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 262,144 tokens | 400,000 tokens (best) | 128,000 tokens |
| Max output | 65,536 tokens | 128,000 tokens (best) | 8,192 tokens |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | Yes | Yes |
| PDFs | No | No | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | Yes | No |
| Tool calling | Yes | No | Yes |
| Structured output | No | Yes | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Open | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| API model ID | qwen3-coder-480b-a35b-instruct | — | — |
| API providers | 7 (best) | 2 | 3 |
| Released | Apr 2025 | Aug 7, 2025 | Apr 8, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Apr 2025 | Sep 30, 2024 | — |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct$30.00
- GPT-5 Chat$32.50
- Pixtral Large (25.02)$32.00
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct, GPT-5 Chat or Pixtral Large (25.02)?
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 1 points (GPT-5 Chat 34/100, Pixtral Large (25.02) 33/100, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct 28/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct on price and GPT-5 Chat for long inputs. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct, GPT-5 Chat or Pixtral Large (25.02)?
Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct is cheaper at $1.50 input / $7.50 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Pixtral Large (25.02) costs $2.00 input / $6.00 output per million tokens (median across 3 API providers); GPT-5 Chat costs $1.25 input / $10.00 output per million tokens (median across 2 API providers). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $3.00 per million tokens for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct versus $3.00 for Pixtral Large (25.02) (1× as much) and $3.44 for GPT-5 Chat (1.1× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
There is no independent benchmark that covers all three models yet. Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has not been scored yet, GPT-5 Chat has not been scored yet and Pixtral Large (25.02) has not been scored yet.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct, GPT-5 Chat and Pixtral Large (25.02) yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. Note that GPT-5 Chat does not support tool calling, which most coding agents need.
Which has the bigger context window?
GPT-5 Chat has the largest context window at 400,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct and 128,000 for Pixtral Large (25.02). Maximum output per response: Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct up to 65,536, GPT-5 Chat up to 128,000, Pixtral Large (25.02) up to 8,192 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct accepts text; GPT-5 Chat accepts text and images; Pixtral Large (25.02) accepts text and images. GPT-5 Chat handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; GPT-5 Chat and Pixtral Large (25.02) is proprietary.
Which is newer?
GPT-5 Chat is the newest, released Aug 7, 2025. Pixtral Large (25.02) came out Apr 8, 2025; Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct came out Apr 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct Apr 2025, GPT-5 Chat Sep 30, 2024.
How do you decide the winner?
Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.
