Grok 4.3 (High) vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.3 (High) by SpaceXAI or Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? 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 4.3 (High) scores 13.7 points higher (24.9 vs 11.2) but costs 1.1× as much to run the benchmark ($363 vs $329; both mid-range class). Pick Grok 4.3 (High) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning).
| Metric | Grok 4.3 (High) | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 24.9 | 11.2 | −55.0% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 55.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $363.24 | $328.86 | −9.5% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 9.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 28.87s | 42.11s | +45.9% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 45.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.25 / $2.50 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs Grok 4.3 (High): 55.0% less intelligence, 9.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 45.9% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.3 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Grok 4.3 (High)Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)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/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-3/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill