Grok 4.5 vs Qwen3.5 397B
Head-to-head comparison across 2benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
Verdict
Grok 4.5 leads for most workloads.
- Qwen3.5 397B is ~3.3× cheaper on input tokens — the budget pick.
Based on BenchLM composite scores, July 2026.
Grok 4.5
75
Qwen3.5 397B
61
Verified leaderboard positions: Grok 4.5 unranked · Qwen3.5 397B #24
Pick Grok 4.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen3.5 397B only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.
Category Radar
Head-to-Head by Category
Category Breakdown
| Benchmark | Grok 4.5 | Δ | Qwen3.5 397B |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agentic | 83.3 | ← 26.8 | 56.5 |
| Coding | 64.7 | ← 4.4 | 60.3 |
| Reasoning | — | — | 63.2 |
| Knowledge | — | — | 56.9 |
| Math | — | — | 90.6 |
| Multilingual | — | — | 84.7 |
| Multimodal | — | — | 79.6 |
| Inst. Following | — | — | 92.6 |
Operational Comparison
Grok 4.5
Qwen3.5 397B
$2 / $6
$0.6 / $3.6
N/A
96 t/s
N/A
2.44s
500K
128K
Quick Verdict
Pick Grok 4.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen3.5 397B only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.
Grok 4.5 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 75 to 61. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Grok 4.5's sharpest advantage is in agentic, where it averages 83.3 against 56.5. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is Terminal-Bench 2.0, 83.3% to 52.5%.
Grok 4.5 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $2.00 input / $6.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.60 input / $3.60 output per 1M tokens for Qwen3.5 397B. Grok 4.5 is the reasoning model in the pair, while Qwen3.5 397B is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. Grok 4.5 gives you the larger context window at 500K, compared with 128K for Qwen3.5 397B.
Benchmark Deep Dive
Frequently Asked Questions (3)
Which is better, Grok 4.5 or Qwen3.5 397B?
Grok 4.5 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 75 to 61. The biggest single separator in this matchup is Terminal-Bench 2.0, where the scores are 83.3% and 52.5%.
Which is better for coding, Grok 4.5 or Qwen3.5 397B?
Grok 4.5 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 64.7 versus 60.3. Inside this category, SWE-bench Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Which is better for agentic tasks, Grok 4.5 or Qwen3.5 397B?
Grok 4.5 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 83.3 versus 56.5. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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