Grok 4.6 (Medium) vs Kimi K3 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.6 (Medium) by SpaceXAI or Kimi K3 (Max) by Kimi? 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
Kimi K3 (Max) scores 0.8 points higher (43.6 vs 42.8) but costs 2.3× as much to run the benchmark ($3658 vs $1557; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Kimi K3 (Max) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Grok 4.6 (Medium).
| Metric | Grok 4.6 (Medium) | Kimi K3 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 42.8 | 43.6 | +1.9% Kimi K3 (Max) is 1.9% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,557.04 | $3,658.07 | +134.9% Kimi K3 (Max) is 2.3× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 31.56s | 63.08s | +99.9% Kimi K3 (Max) is 99.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $6.00 | $3.00 / $15.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Kimi K3 (Max) vs Grok 4.6 (Medium): 1.9% more intelligence, 134.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 99.9% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.6 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Kimi K3 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Grok 4.6 (Medium)Kimi K3 (Max)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-4-6-medium/kimi-k3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-6-medium/kimi-k3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill