Grok 4.5vs.Qwen 3.8 27B
Which one is better?
Grok 4.5 is clearly ahead in the overall index, but costs 50 times (input) and 2.4 times (output) as much per token.
35
Grok 4.5
Rank 30 to 42
11
Qwen 3.8 27B
Rank 44 to 57
70
Grok 4.5
fairly slow
40
Qwen 3.8 27B
slow
$3
Grok 4.5
fairly expensive
$0.66
Qwen 3.8 27B
fairly cheap
Grok 4.5
- Subscription
At xAI from €8 a month (The X Subscription Plus). Through other providers from ≈ €1.06 a month (Command Code Go, with limited credits). 28 plans in Germany.
- Via API
$2 input, $6 output per 1M tokens, unchanged since our price tracking began on Aug 14, 2026.
- Note
- There is a successor: Grok 4.6 (rank 20 to 27, same price).
Qwen 3.8 27B
- Subscription
No Alibaba subscription includes this model. Through other providers from ≈ €1.06 a month (Command Code Go, with limited credits). 10 plans in Germany.
- Via API
$0.04 input, $2.50 output per 1M tokens according to the provider; the price index has listed it at $0.42 and $3 since Oct 27, 2026.
Overall index with data through Oct 29, 2026 · Prices from Oct 29, 2026 · Speed: measured by Artificial Analysis · Subscriptions as of Oct 24, 2026 · Subscription prices incl. VAT
Where is the difference?
Values from 0 to 100 per task area. We only name a winner when the gap is large enough and there are enough tests.
Grok 4.5 ahead: 6Qwen 3.8 27B ahead: 0level: 3too little data: 1of 10 areas
AreaGrok 4.5Qwen 3.8 27B0 to 100, higher is betterResult
Areas in the overall index
CodingGrok 4.5 aheadGrok 4.5: 30Qwen 3.8 27B: 13
ReasoningGrok 4.5 aheadGrok 4.5: 48Qwen 3.8 27B: 6
MathematicsGrok 4.5 aheadGrok 4.5: 38Qwen 3.8 27B: 8
KnowledgeGrok 4.5 aheadGrok 4.5: 39Qwen 3.8 27B: 5
AgentslevelGrok 4.5: 59Qwen 3.8 27B: 21
Generalonly Grok 4.5 has a scoreGrok 4.5: 26Qwen 3.8 27B: not enough data
MultimodallevelGrok 4.5: 10Qwen 3.8 27B: 13
Specialist fields
FinancelevelGrok 4.5: 29Qwen 3.8 27B: 34
LegalGrok 4.5 aheadGrok 4.5: 46Qwen 3.8 27B: 23
HealthGrok 4.5 aheadGrok 4.5: 37Qwen 3.8 27B: 3
Show 2 more areas that do not count toward the overall index
AreaGrok 4.5Qwen 3.8 27B0 to 100, higher is betterResult
CybersecurityGrok 4.5 aheadGrok 4.5: 49Qwen 3.8 27B: 19
Searchonly Grok 4.5 has a scoreGrok 4.5: 48Qwen 3.8 27B: not enough data
See for yourself: same task, one attempt
The same prompt for both models. We show the latest attempt without fixes; it does not count toward the overall index.
Pelican on a bicycle
A community classic for free-form SVG drawing.
Grok 4.5
Reasoning (requested): high
Current attempt
- Run date
- Oct 1, 2026
- API provider
- openrouter
- Requested API model
- x-ai/grok-4.5
- API model reported in response
- x-ai/grok-4.5
- Reasoning setting
- high
- Pinned endpoint
- xAI | x-ai/grok-4.5-20260708
- Temperature
- Provider default
- Token limit including reasoning
- 8,192 tokens
- Test protocol
- community-visual-tests-v1
- Technical checks
- Passed, not a quality rating
- Response time
- 23.1 s
Visually reviewed. This individual test does not establish overall model quality.
Earlier attempts (1)
- Sep 7, 2026API request failedReasoning setting: high
Qwen 3.8 27B
Not tested yet
Prompt and test conditions
Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle
Token limit including reasoning: 8,192 tokens
Task origin (Simon Willison)SVG short test
SVG short test
One SVG task with the same fixed settings for every model, without hidden thinking.
Shared test round: 43b8c5c46830
Grok 4.5
Unavailable in this round
Qwen 3.8 27B
Test details
API reports 0 reasoning tokensAPI model: qwen/qwen3.8-27b865 output tokensAll data side by side
The better value is bold. For the overall index only when the gap is clear.
| Metric | Grok 4.5 | Qwen 3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| Intelligence | ||
| Overall index0 to 100, higher is better | 35 | 11 |
| Rank | Rank 30 to 42 of 95 | Rank 44 to 57 of 95 |
| Price per 1M tokens | ||
| Inputwhat you send | $2above 200,000 tokens: $4 | $0.04 |
| Outputwhat the model writes | $6above 200,000 tokens: $12 | $2.50 |
| Speed | ||
| Tokens per second | 70 | 40 |
| Technical | ||
| Context windowhow much text the model reads at once | 500,000 tokens≈ 750 A4 pages | 262,144 tokens≈ 390 A4 pages |
| Knowledge cutoff | Feb 1, 2026 | n/a |
| Released | Jul 16, 2026 | Aug 14, 2026 |
| Availability | Active | Active |
| Open weights | no | yes |
Prices without caching or batch discounts · Page count as a rule of thumb from Artificial Analysis
Shared benchmarks
Single results from the same benchmark version, task and metric. A value is bold only with the same test setup and a clear gap.
A: Grok 4.5B: Qwen 3.8 27B
Code MigrationOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 36.6%Qwen 3.8 27B: 14.2%Vals AIAs of 10/18/2026
CyberBench v1.1Overall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 71%Qwen 3.8 27B: 67.8%Vals AIAs of 10/20/2026
EMBOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 52.9%Qwen 3.8 27B: 59.7%Vals AIAs of 10/20/2026
Finance Agent (v2)Overall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 48.3%Qwen 3.8 27B: 48.6%Vals AIAs of 10/20/2026
GPQA DiamondOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 92.9%Qwen 3.8 27B: 88.9%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
IOIOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 40.6%Qwen 3.8 27B: 39.1%Vals AIAs of 10/24/2026
Legal Research BenchOverall · All-pass · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 38%Qwen 3.8 27B: 36.1%Vals AIAs of 10/26/2026
LegalBenchOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 86%Qwen 3.8 27B: 82.4%Vals AIAs of 10/13/2026
LiveCodeBenchOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 87.4%Qwen 3.8 27B: 84%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
MedCodeOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 43.3%Qwen 3.8 27B: 28.7%Vals AIAs of 10/13/2026
Show 54 more benchmarks
MedScribeOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 86.9%Qwen 3.8 27B: 83.8%Vals AIAs of 10/13/2026
MMLU ProOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 89.2%Qwen 3.8 27B: 84.3%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
MMMU ProOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 61.8%Qwen 3.8 27B: 83.9%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
MortgageTaxOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 61.8%Qwen 3.8 27B: 64.9%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
ProgramBenchOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 0%Qwen 3.8 27B: 0%Vals AIAs of 10/20/2026
ProofBench v1.1Overall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 31%Qwen 3.8 27B: 16%Vals AIAs of 10/24/2026
SkillsBenchOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 66%Qwen 3.8 27B: 38.1%Vals AIAs of 09/27/2026
SWE-bench VerifiedOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 86.6%Qwen 3.8 27B: 86%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
Tax Agent BenchOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 24.9%Qwen 3.8 27B: 30.9%Vals AIAs of 10/26/2026
TaxEval v2Overall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 71.7%Qwen 3.8 27B: 70.9%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
Terminal-Bench 2.1Overall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 67.8%Qwen 3.8 27B: 58.4%Vals AIAs of 10/01/2026
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Overall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 69%Qwen 3.8 27B: 64.9%Vals AIAs of 10/26/2026
Code MigrationCLI · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 25.5%Qwen 3.8 27B: 2.2%Vals AIAs of 10/18/2026
CyberBench v1.1Patch · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 80.4%Qwen 3.8 27B: 83.9%Vals AIAs of 10/20/2026
EMBComps · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 39.5%Qwen 3.8 27B: 53.3%Vals AIAs of 10/20/2026
Finance Agent (v2)Adjustments · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 38.6%Qwen 3.8 27B: 47.3%Vals AIAs of 10/20/2026
GPQA DiamondFew-Shot CoT · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 92.9%Qwen 3.8 27B: 88.9%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
IOIIOI 2024 · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 47.2%Qwen 3.8 27B: 31.8%Vals AIAs of 10/24/2026
Legal Research BenchAdministrative / Regulatory · All-pass · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 51.5%Qwen 3.8 27B: 45.5%Vals AIAs of 10/26/2026
LegalBenchConclusion Tasks · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 89.5%Qwen 3.8 27B: 88.4%Vals AIAs of 10/13/2026
LiveCodeBenchEasy · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 99.1%Qwen 3.8 27B: 99.1%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
MMLU ProBiology · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 94.3%Qwen 3.8 27B: 91.5%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
MortgageTaxNumerical Extraction · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 62.8%Qwen 3.8 27B: 69.4%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
ProgramBenchAlmost Resolved · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 4.5%Qwen 3.8 27B: 1%Vals AIAs of 10/20/2026
SkillsBenchNo Skills · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 48.8%Qwen 3.8 27B: 19.1%Vals AIAs of 09/27/2026
SWE-bench Verified<15 min fix · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 93.8%Qwen 3.8 27B: 90.2%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
Tax Agent BenchControversy & Precedence Analysis · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 10%Qwen 3.8 27B: 6.7%Vals AIAs of 10/26/2026
TaxEval v2Correctness · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 62.6%Qwen 3.8 27B: 60.1%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
Terminal-Bench 2.1Easy · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 91.7%Qwen 3.8 27B: 50%Vals AIAs of 10/01/2026
Code MigrationCOBOL · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 70%Qwen 3.8 27B: 50%Vals AIAs of 10/18/2026
CyberBench v1.1PoC · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 61.7%Qwen 3.8 27B: 51.7%Vals AIAs of 10/20/2026
EMBDataroom · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 65%Qwen 3.8 27B: 79.7%Vals AIAs of 10/20/2026
Finance Agent (v2)All-Pass · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 36.7%Qwen 3.8 27B: 36.8%Vals AIAs of 10/20/2026
GPQA DiamondZero-Shot CoT · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 92.9%Qwen 3.8 27B: 88.9%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
IOIIOI 2025 · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 33.5%Qwen 3.8 27B: 48.5%Vals AIAs of 10/24/2026
Legal Research BenchAdministrative / Regulatory · Weighted partial credit · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 88.8%Qwen 3.8 27B: 88.5%Vals AIAs of 10/26/2026
LegalBenchInterpretation Tasks · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 83.2%Qwen 3.8 27B: 82%Vals AIAs of 10/13/2026
LiveCodeBenchHard · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 73.4%Qwen 3.8 27B: 65.7%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
MMLU ProBusiness · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 93.3%Qwen 3.8 27B: 90.2%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
MortgageTaxSemantic Extraction · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 60.8%Qwen 3.8 27B: 60.5%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
ProgramBenchFully Resolved · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 0%Qwen 3.8 27B: 0%Vals AIAs of 10/20/2026
SkillsBenchWith Skills · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 66%Qwen 3.8 27B: 38.1%Vals AIAs of 09/27/2026
SWE-bench Verified>4 hours · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 66.7%Qwen 3.8 27B: 66.7%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
Tax Agent BenchControversy & Precedence Analysis · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 60.7%Qwen 3.8 27B: 48.3%Vals AIAs of 10/26/2026
TaxEval v2Stepwise Reasoning · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 80.8%Qwen 3.8 27B: 81.6%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
Terminal-Bench 2.1Hard · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 56.7%Qwen 3.8 27B: 43.3%Vals AIAs of 10/01/2026
Code MigrationCode Quality · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 4.078 / 5Qwen 3.8 27B: 4.197 / 5Vals AIAs of 10/18/2026
EMBDCF · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 41.5%Qwen 3.8 27B: 50%Vals AIAs of 10/20/2026
Finance Agent (v2)Comparables · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 41.8%Qwen 3.8 27B: 38.9%Vals AIAs of 10/20/2026
IOIIOI 2026 · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 41%Qwen 3.8 27B: 36.8%Vals AIAs of 10/24/2026
Legal Research BenchBusiness & Commercial · All-pass · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 30.2%Qwen 3.8 27B: 41.9%Vals AIAs of 10/26/2026
LegalBenchIssue Tasks · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 90.1%Qwen 3.8 27B: 90.2%Vals AIAs of 10/13/2026
LiveCodeBenchMedium · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 89.6%Qwen 3.8 27B: 87.2%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026
MMLU ProChemistry · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalGrok 4.5: 91.6%Qwen 3.8 27B: 91.8%Vals AIAs of 09/01/2026