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© 2026 CompareLLM. Public benchmark data aggregated from Arena Elo, LiveBench, SWE-bench & OpenRouter.

Every score has a dated snapshot.

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  3. Grok 4 vs Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking

Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 17, 2026noindex (thin pair)

Grok 4 vs Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking benchmark

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.

Executive Comparison Verdict

Bottom Line: Choose Grok 4 if your priority is peak reasoning, complex code generation, and top preference Elo. Choose Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking if you are optimizing for low latency, high throughput, and cost-efficient API deployment.
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Verified Head-to-Head Advantage Breakdown

3 direct benchmark disciplines evaluated across capability, speed, and cost

Grok 4 (0)Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking (3)
Grok 4
0 of 3 Wins
Competitive baseline across remaining benchmarks
Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking
3 of 3 Wins
✓Input price✓Output price✓Context window
xAI
Grok 4

Previous xAI flagship.

Grok 4.0Elo 1,488$15/1M out
Alibaba
Leads 3 of 3 metrics
Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking

Auto-discovered from OpenRouter (qwen/qwen3-max-thinking). Preview until a second source matches.

$3.9/1M out

Grok 4 Series Lineage & Sibling Variants

2 models

Currently comparing Grok 4 vs Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking. Alternative family tiers available.

Active: Grok 4
Grok 4.6$6
Top Rival Showdowns for Grok 4
All Matchups
Compare vs:vs Claude Opus 4.5vs GPT-5vs Gemini 3 Provs DeepSeek V4 Provs Qwen 3 Max
Preference Leader

No shared data

Single model data

Throughput Leader

No shared data

No latency data

Value per Dollar LeaderQwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking Wins

Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking

$3.9 / 1M output

Capability Percentiles

Relative percentile scores computed across all active models in the benchmark catalog.

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Leaders Matchup Capability Radar

Comparing top Western standard models with China's leading frontier rival across 6 skill dimensions. Tap any spoke or dot to inspect.

Tap any node to inspect
0–100 %ile
Head-to-Head Comparison

Overall Matchup Breakdown

Category wins across reasoning intelligence, generation speed, and token cost.

Grok 4 (6)vsQwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking (3)
Grok 4: 6W (67%)Overall: Grok 4Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking: 3W (33%)
← Grok 4Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking →
🏆Grok 4(4/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy

Benchmark
Grok 4vsQwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking
Preference Elo
1,488vs—
Coding Elo
—vs—
SWE-bench
58.6%vs—
LiveBench
64.1%vs—
GPQA Diamond
79%vs—
Grok 4: 4WQwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking: 0W
🏆Grok 4(2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Benchmark
Grok 4vsQwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking
Output speed
98 tok/svs—
Time to first token
230 msvs—
Grok 4: 2WQwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking: 0W
🏆Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking(3/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Benchmark
Grok 4vsQwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking
Output price
$15/1Mvs$3.9/1M+$11.1/1M
Input price
$3/1Mvs$0.78/1M+$2.22/1M
Context window
256kvs262k+6k
Grok 4: 0WQwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking: 3W

Side-by-Side Benchmark Matrix

Preference Elo
Grok 41,488
lmarena · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking—
LiveBench
Grok 464.1%
livebench · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking—
SWE-bench
Grok 458.6%
swebench · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking—
GPQA Diamond
Grok 479%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking—
Time to first token
Grok 4230 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking—
Output speed
Grok 498 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking—
Input price+$2.22/1M
Grok 4$3/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking$0.78/1M
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
Output price+$11.1/1M
Grok 4$15/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking$3.9/1M
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
Context window+6k
Grok 4256k
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking262k
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
BenchmarkGrok 4Qwen: Qwen3 Max ThinkingAdvantage Delta
Preference Elo
1,488
lmarena · Aug 17, 2026
——
LiveBench
64.1%
livebench · Aug 17, 2026
——
SWE-bench
58.6%
swebench · Aug 17, 2026
——
GPQA Diamond
79%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
——
Time to first token
230 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
——
Output speed
98 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
——
Input price
$3/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
$0.78/1M
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
+$2.22/1M
Output price
$15/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
$3.9/1M
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
+$11.1/1M
Context window
256k
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
262k
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
+6k
Interactive Simulator (USD)

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Simulate monthly production API costs in USD (US Dollar).

Save up to 74% with Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking
Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo
Quick Presets:
Token Ratio (In vs Out)70% In / 30% Out
RAG / Search (10% out)Coding / Chat (50% out)
Grok 4$330.00 / mo
In: $105Out: $225
Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking$85.80 / mo
In: $27.3Out: $58.5
Estimated Cost Delta

Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking is estimated to save $244.20/month ($2,930/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

  • 1
    Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking:Pick Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking when you are optimizing output cost.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsinsufficient data

Need SWE-bench on both sides.

High-volume chatQwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking

Lower output list price ($3.9/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIinsufficient data

Need TTFT on both sides.

Long-document RAGQwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking

Larger window (262k).

Screenshots / visionGrok 4

Grok 4 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target WorkloadRecommended PickEvaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agentsinsufficient dataNeed SWE-bench on both sides.
High-volume chatQwen: Qwen3 Max ThinkingLower output list price ($3.9/1M).
Voice / low-latency UIinsufficient dataNeed TTFT on both sides.
Long-document RAGQwen: Qwen3 Max ThinkingLarger window (262k).
Screenshots / visionGrok 4Grok 4 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

View all news
launchJul 10, 2025

Grok 4 remains the previous xAI flagship on this catalog

2025-07 row. 4.6 is the buy. We keep 4 so upgrade pairs and old inbound links resolve.

Community Sentiment

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CompareLLM AI Matrix

Verified Head-to-Head Telemetry

LIVE BENCHMARK
VS
xAI

Grok 4

Elo 1,488
SWE-bench58.6%
Speed (tok/s)98 tok/s
Input / 1M Tokens$3/1M
Output / 1M Tokens$15/1M
Alibaba

Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking

Elo n/a
SWE-bench—
Speed (tok/s)262k
Input / 1M Tokens$0.78/1M
Output / 1M Tokens$3.9/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Grok 4 or Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking?
We do not have preference Elo for both models, so we do not declare an overall winner. Compare the metrics that exist.
Which is better at coding, Grok 4 or Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking?
SWE-bench is missing for at least one model, so we do not rank coding from a single number.
Which is cheaper to run in production?
Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking output tokens are $3.9/1M versus $15/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, Grok 4 or Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking?
We do not have TTFT for both models.
Which has the larger context window?
Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking accepts 262k tokens versus 256k.
Can I self-host either model?
Neither model is marked open-weights here. You are comparing hosted APIs.
Are these scores from CompareLLM’s own evals?
No. V1 aggregates public leaderboards (and optional first-party latency pings). Each cell names its source and date. Read /methodology.
What does preference Elo mean on this page?
Preference Elo is a crowd vote from LMArena / Arena. People see two hidden answers and pick the one they like more. The model that wins more often gets a higher Elo. That means people preferred it — not that it passed a school test. It is not SWE-bench, not accuracy, and not a number we invent. Grok 4 and Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Related news

  • launch · Jul 10, 2025

    Grok 4 remains the previous xAI flagship on this catalog

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All Grok 4 matchups →|All Qwen: Qwen3 Max Thinking matchups →
Grok 4 vs Grok 3 (previous grok)Grok 4 vs Grok 4.6 (next grok)Qwen 3 Max vs Grok 4Qwen QwQ 32B vs Grok 4Qwen 2.5 Plus vs Grok 4Qwen2.5 Coder 32B Instruct vs Grok 4