Compare/Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning) vs Qwen3 Next 80B A3B (Reasoning)

Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning)vsQwen3 Next 80B A3B (Reasoning)

Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.

SpaceXAI

Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning)

Input
$2/M
Output
$6/M
Speed
TTFT
Alibaba

Qwen3 Next 80B A3B (Reasoning)

Input
$0.5/M
Output
$6/M
Speed
141 tok/s
TTFT
1.23s

Winner by Category

Cheaper
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B (Reasoning)
Faster (tok/s)
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B (Reasoning)
Lower Latency
Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning)
Benchmarks (6-5)
Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning)

Pricing Comparison

MetricGrok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning)Qwen3 Next 80B A3B (Reasoning)
Input ($/M tokens)$2$0.5
Output ($/M tokens)$6$6
Cost for 1M input + 100K output tokens:
Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning)$2.60
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B (Reasoning)$1.10

Speed Comparison

Output Speed (tokens/s) — higher is better
Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning)
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B (Reasoning)
141 tok/s
Time to First Token (seconds) — lower is better
Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning)
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B (Reasoning)
1.23s

Benchmark Comparison

Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks

Intelligence Index
36.516.7
Coding Index
17.4
Math Index
84.3
GPQA Diamond
88.5%75.9%
MMLU-Pro
82.4%
LiveCodeBench
78.4%
AIME 2025
84.3%
MATH-500
Humanity's Last Exam
30.0%11.7%
SciCode
44.7%38.8%
IFBench
82.9%60.7%
TerminalBench
40.9%9.8%
Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning)6 wins
5 winsQwen3 Next 80B A3B (Reasoning)

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is cheaper, Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning) or Qwen3 Next 80B A3B (Reasoning)?

Qwen3 Next 80B A3B (Reasoning) is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $1.88/M tokens vs $3.00/M for Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning).

Which model performs better on benchmarks?

Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning) wins 6 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 5 for Qwen3 Next 80B A3B (Reasoning). See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.

Which is faster for real-time applications?

Qwen3 Next 80B A3B (Reasoning) generates tokens faster at 141 tok/s vs 0 tok/s. Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning) also has lower time-to-first-token (0.00s vs 1.23s).

When should I use Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning) vs Qwen3 Next 80B A3B (Reasoning)?

Choose based on your priorities: Qwen3 Next 80B A3B (Reasoning) for lower cost, Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning) for stronger benchmark performance, and Qwen3 Next 80B A3B (Reasoning) for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.