Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 17, 2026noindex (thin pair)
In this head-to-head showdown, Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking is more budget-friendly at $3.9/1M per 1M output tokens. Review the complete breakdown below to determine which model best fits your performance and budget requirements.
3 direct benchmark disciplines evaluated across capability, speed, and cost
xAI Aug 12 2026 post-training refresh of Grok 4.5. Same $2/$6 API price, 500k context, stronger agentic traces.
Auto-discovered from OpenRouter (qwen/qwen3-max-thinking). Preview until a second source matches.
Single model data
No latency data
$3.9 / 1M output
Relative percentile scores computed across all active models in the benchmark catalog.
Comparing top Western standard models with China's leading frontier rival across 6 skill dimensions. Tap any spoke or dot to inspect.
Category wins across reasoning intelligence, generation speed, and token cost.
Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy
Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness
Cost per million tokens and max context window length
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking | Advantage Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preference Elo | — | — | |
| Coding Elo | — | — | |
| LiveBench | — | — | |
| SWE-bench | — | — | |
| GPQA Diamond | — | — | |
| Time to first token | — | — | |
| Output speed | 118 tok/s | — | — |
| Input price | $0.78/1M | +$1.22/1M | |
| Output price | $3.9/1M | +$2.1/1M | |
| Context window | +238k |
Simulate monthly production API costs in USD (US Dollar).
Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking is estimated to save $74.20/month ($890/year).
Need SWE-bench on both sides.
Lower output list price ($3.9/1M).
Need TTFT on both sides.
Larger window (500k).
Grok 4.6 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.
| Target Workload | Recommended Pick | Evaluation Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Repo / coding agents | insufficient data | Need SWE-bench on both sides. |
| High-volume chat | Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking | Lower output list price ($3.9/1M). |
| Voice / low-latency UI | insufficient data | Need TTFT on both sides. |
| Long-document RAG | Grok 4.6 | Larger window (500k). |
| Screenshots / vision | Grok 4.6 | Grok 4.6 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog. |
Brand hub remaps to top xAI vs top OpenAI. After Aug 12 that is Grok 4.6 vs Sol.
xAI’s Aug 12 2026 refresh of Grok 4.5. 500k context. The Grok vs ChatGPT hub remaps here.
2025-07 row. 4.6 is the buy. We keep 4 so upgrade pairs and old inbound links resolve.
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Verified Head-to-Head Telemetry
