Compare/Qwen3 Max Thinking (Preview) vs Grok 4.5 (high)

Qwen3 Max Thinking (Preview)vsGrok 4.5 (high)

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

Alibaba

Qwen3 Max Thinking (Preview)

Input
$1.2/M
Output
$6/M
Speed
58 tok/s
TTFT
1.84s
SpaceXAI

Grok 4.5 (high)

Input
$2/M
Output
$6/M
Speed
96 tok/s
TTFT
17.19s

Winner by Category

Cheaper
Qwen3 Max Thinking (Preview)
Faster (tok/s)
Grok 4.5 (high)
Lower Latency
Qwen3 Max Thinking (Preview)
Benchmarks (6-5)
Qwen3 Max Thinking (Preview)

Pricing Comparison

MetricQwen3 Max Thinking (Preview)Grok 4.5 (high)
Input ($/M tokens)$1.2$2
Output ($/M tokens)$6$6
Cost for 1M input + 100K output tokens:
Qwen3 Max Thinking (Preview)$1.80
Grok 4.5 (high)$2.60

Speed Comparison

Output Speed (tokens/s) — higher is better
Qwen3 Max Thinking (Preview)
58 tok/s
Grok 4.5 (high)
96 tok/s
Time to First Token (seconds) — lower is better
Qwen3 Max Thinking (Preview)
1.84s
Grok 4.5 (high)
17.19s

Benchmark Comparison

Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks

Intelligence Index
25.053.8
Coding Index
72.4
Math Index
82.3
GPQA Diamond
77.6%93.1%
MMLU-Pro
82.4%
LiveCodeBench
53.5%
AIME 2025
82.3%
MATH-500
Humanity's Last Exam
12.0%40.3%
SciCode
38.7%54.1%
IFBench
53.8%
TerminalBench
17.4%
Qwen3 Max Thinking (Preview)6 wins
5 winsGrok 4.5 (high)

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is cheaper, Qwen3 Max Thinking (Preview) or Grok 4.5 (high)?

Qwen3 Max Thinking (Preview) is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $2.40/M tokens vs $3.00/M for Grok 4.5 (high).

Which model performs better on benchmarks?

Qwen3 Max Thinking (Preview) wins 6 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 5 for Grok 4.5 (high). See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.

Which is faster for real-time applications?

Grok 4.5 (high) generates tokens faster at 96 tok/s vs 58 tok/s. Qwen3 Max Thinking (Preview) also has lower time-to-first-token (1.84s vs 17.19s).

When should I use Qwen3 Max Thinking (Preview) vs Grok 4.5 (high)?

Choose based on your priorities: Qwen3 Max Thinking (Preview) for lower cost, Qwen3 Max Thinking (Preview) for stronger benchmark performance, and Grok 4.5 (high) for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.