Grok 4.5 (High) vs Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.5 (High) by SpaceXAI or Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Grok 4.5 (High) scores 17.4 points higher (38.8 vs 21.4) but costs 1.1× as much to run the benchmark ($1244 vs $1145; both premium class). Pick Grok 4.5 (High) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning).
| Metric | Grok 4.5 (High) | Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.8 | 21.4 | −44.8% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 44.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,243.85 | $1,145.36 | −7.9% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 7.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 18.82s | 112.14s | +495.9% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 495.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $6.00 | $0.60 / $3.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) vs Grok 4.5 (High): 44.8% less intelligence, 7.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 495.9% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.5 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Grok 4.5 (High)Qwen3.6 27B (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-4-5/qwen3-6-27b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-5/qwen3-6-27b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill