Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Low)
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning) by SpaceXAI or Qwen3.8 27B (Low) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8 27B (Low) scores 12.2 points higher (26.2 vs 14.0) but costs 5.4× as much to run the benchmark ($1165 vs $216; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 27B (Low) when you need intelligence above 14.0, and Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning) when 14.0 is enough.
| Metric | Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning) | Qwen3.8 27B (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 14.0 | 26.2 | +87.1% Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is 87.1% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $215.93 | $1,164.93 | +439.5% Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is 5.4× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.81s | 58.18s | +901.4% Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is 901.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.25 / $2.50 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Low) vs Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning): 87.1% more intelligence, 439.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 901.4% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning)Qwen3.8 27B (Low)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/grok-4-3-non-reasoning/qwen3-8-27b-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-3-non-reasoning/qwen3-8-27b-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill