DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) vs Grok 4.6 (Medium)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) by DeepSeek or Grok 4.6 (Medium) by SpaceXAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Grok 4.6 (Medium) scores 31.4 points higher (42.8 vs 11.4) but costs 3.4× as much to run the benchmark ($1557 vs $461; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Grok 4.6 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 11.4, and DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) when 11.4 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) | Grok 4.6 (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.4 | 42.8 | +275.4% Grok 4.6 (Medium) is 3.8× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $460.74 | $1,557.04 | +237.9% Grok 4.6 (Medium) is 3.4× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 20.16s | 33.09s | +64.1% Grok 4.6 (Medium) is 64.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $4.00 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Grok 4.6 (Medium) vs DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25): 275.4% more intelligence, 237.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 64.1% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
- Grok 4.6 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)Grok 4.6 (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-r1-0120/grok-4-6-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-r1-0120/grok-4-6-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill