Grok 4.6 (Medium) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.6 (Medium) by SpaceXAI or Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) 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 4.6 (Medium) scores 9.1 points higher (42.8 vs 33.7) but costs 1.2× as much to run the benchmark ($1557 vs $1336; both premium class). Pick Grok 4.6 (Medium) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh).
| Metric | Grok 4.6 (Medium) | Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 42.8 | 33.7 | −21.3% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 21.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,557.04 | $1,336.09 | −14.2% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 14.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 33.09s | 58.77s | +77.6% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 77.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $6.00 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) vs Grok 4.6 (Medium): 21.3% less intelligence, 14.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 77.6% 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.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Grok 4.6 (Medium)Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh)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/qwen3-8-27b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-6-medium/qwen3-8-27b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill