Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) vs Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) by SpaceXAI or Qwen3.8-Flash-Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) scores 4.4 points higher (44.2 vs 39.8) but costs 6.2× as much to run the benchmark ($2242 vs $363; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 39.8, and Qwen3.8-Flash-Next when 39.8 is enough.
| Metric | Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) | Qwen3.8-Flash-Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.2 | 39.8 | −10.0% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 10.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,241.91 | $362.72 | −83.8% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 83.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 39.83s | 50.47s | +26.7% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 26.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $6.00 | $0.15 / $0.47 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next vs Grok 4.6 (Xhigh): 10.0% less intelligence, 83.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 26.7% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Grok 4.6 (Xhigh)Qwen3.8-Flash-NextToday'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-xhigh/qwen3-8-flash-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-6-xhigh/qwen3-8-flash-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill