Grok 4.6 (High) vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.6 (High) by SpaceXAI or Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) 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 (High) scores 25.9 points higher (44.3 vs 18.4) but costs 2.1× as much to run the benchmark ($1963 vs $941; both premium class). Pick Grok 4.6 (High) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning).
| Metric | Grok 4.6 (High) | Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.3 | 18.4 | −58.5% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 58.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,962.90 | $940.97 | −52.1% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 52.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 37.23s | 65.10s | +74.9% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 74.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $6.00 | $0.60 / $3.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) vs Grok 4.6 (High): 58.5% less intelligence, 52.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 74.9% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.6 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Grok 4.6 (High)Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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