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Model comparison

Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B vs Pixtral 12B (24.09)

GoogleGemini 1.5 Flash-8B
Input
$0.0375 / 1M tokens (prompts < 128K)
Output
$0.15 / 1M tokens (prompts < 128K)
Context
1M
Released
2024-10-03
Full model page →Mistral AIPixtral 12B (24.09)
Input
$0.15 / 1M tokens
Output
$0.15 / 1M tokens
Context
128K tokens (131,072)
Released
2024-09-17
Full model page →
Short answer

Pixtral 12B (24.09) scores higher on 4 of the 4 benchmarks both models report; Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B is cheaper on input tokens ($0 vs $0.2 per 1M, 4×); Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B has the larger context window (1M vs 128K); Pixtral 12B (24.09) ships open weights while Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B is API-only.

Specs and pricing side by side

SpecGemini 1.5 Flash-8BPixtral 12B (24.09)
MakerGoogleMistral AI
Released2024-10-032024-09-17
Context window1M128K tokens (131,072)
Max output8KNot separately published by Mistral
Input price$0.0375 / 1M tokens (prompts < 128K)$0.15 / 1M tokens
Output price$0.15 / 1M tokens (prompts < 128K)$0.15 / 1M tokens
Parameters~8B (single-digit billions; exact count undisclosed)~12B decoder + ~400M vision encoder (~12.4B total)
LicenseProprietaryApache 2.0
WeightsAPI onlyOpen weights
ModalitiesText, Vision, Audio, Videotext, image
Knowledge cutoffAugust 2024Not officially published by Mistral

Benchmarks both models report

BenchmarkGemini 1.5 Flash-8BPixtral 12B (24.09)
MMLU68.1%69.2%
MATH35.9%48.1%
MMMU50.3%52%
DocVQA73.6%90.7%

Scores are as published by each maker or its cited source; harness, reasoning effort and date can differ between rows, so treat small gaps as ties. Sources are listed on each model page.

Which one should you pick?

Pick Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B if…

  • Cost matters: input tokens cost 4× less ($0 vs $0.2 per 1M).
  • You need the longer context (1M vs 128K).
  • You need Text / Vision / Audio / Video input, which Pixtral 12B (24.09) lacks.
  • Your use case is: high-volume chat, summarization, and classification where cost-per-token dominates.

Pick Pixtral 12B (24.09) if…

  • You care about MMLU, MATH, MMMU (it scores higher on 4 shared benchmarks).
  • You want to self-host or fine-tune (open weights, Apache 2.0).
  • You need text / image input, which Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B lacks.
  • Your use case is: document and form understanding (OCR-style extraction, document QA).

FAQ

Which is better, Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B or Pixtral 12B (24.09)?

Pixtral 12B (24.09) scores higher on 4 of the 4 benchmarks both models report; Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B is cheaper on input tokens ($0 vs $0.2 per 1M, 4×); Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B has the larger context window (1M vs 128K); Pixtral 12B (24.09) ships open weights while Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B is API-only. The better pick depends on whether you value benchmark scores, price per token, context length or openness for your workload.

How much cheaper is Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B?

Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B: $0.0375 / 1M tokens (prompts < 128K) input, $0.15 / 1M tokens (prompts < 128K) output. Pixtral 12B (24.09): $0.15 / 1M tokens input, $0.15 / 1M tokens output (list API prices as published by each maker).

What are the context windows of Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B and Pixtral 12B (24.09)?

Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B offers 1M with up to 8K output; Pixtral 12B (24.09) offers 128K tokens (131,072) with up to Not separately published by Mistral output.

Is Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B newer than Pixtral 12B (24.09)?

Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B was released 2024-10-03; Pixtral 12B (24.09) was released 2024-09-17.

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