Grok 4.5 (High) vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.5 (High) by SpaceXAI or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 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
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores 6.6 points higher (45.4 vs 38.8) but costs 4.0× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $1244; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 38.8, and Grok 4.5 (High) when 38.8 is enough.
| Metric | Grok 4.5 (High) | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.8 | 45.4 | +17.0% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 17.0% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,243.85 | $4,934.79 | +296.7% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 4.0× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 20.23s | 62.92s | +211.0% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 211.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $6.00 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs Grok 4.5 (High): 17.0% more intelligence, 296.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 211.0% 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.
- Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Grok 4.5 (High)Qwen3.8 Max (0902)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-5/qwen3-8-max · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-5/qwen3-8-max?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill