Noometry

Model comparison

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) vs Qwen3 8B

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.6 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 6 shared benchmarks.

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) xAI

48.6

Rank #54 Confirmed

Qwen3 8B Alibaba (Qwen)

33.7

Rank #238 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 6 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) scores higher in 6 categories and Qwen3 8B in 0 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads 52.3 to 16.6.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 92.2% for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) and 56.1% for Qwen3 8B.
  • Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $1.25 / $2.50 for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning).
  • Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
  • Qwen3 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)Qwen3 8B
ProviderxAIAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index48.633.7
Released2026-02-172025-04
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M131K
Max output30K8K
Input $ / M tokens$1.25$0.18
Output $ / M tokens$2.50$0.70
Results tracked4611

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Category by category

Coding Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 42.1 (#112), Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)

BenchmarkGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)Qwen3 8B
LMArena WebDev1375—
SciCode—22.6%
WeirdML52.3%—
LMArena Coding1459—
ALE-Bench1,150—

Agentic & Tool Use Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 34.4 (#46), Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)

BenchmarkGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)Qwen3 8B
Terminal-Bench57.3%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—42.6%
τ²-bench Banking18%—
LMArena Search1189—
Vending-Bench 24,663—

Reasoning Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.3 (#32), Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)

BenchmarkGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)Qwen3 8B
Chess Puzzles24%5%
DTBench90.1%59.7%
LMCA38.7%8.8%
Epoch Capabilities Index151.98136.17
ARC-AGI-265.1%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark75%—
NYT Connections (extended)85.4%—
ARC-AGI-189.5%—
CritPt—0%
Thematic Generalization63.8%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1451—
ForecastBench61.4—

Math Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 48.2 (#65), Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)

BenchmarkGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)Qwen3 8B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202592.2%56.1%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)44.9%—
FrontierMath Tier 417.1%—
ProofBench14%—
LMArena Math1455—

Knowledge Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.8 (#60), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)

BenchmarkGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)Qwen3 8B
GPQA Diamond89.3%56.8%
SimpleQA Verified30.2%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate—4.8%
LMArena Expert1439—

Multimodal Not comparable

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 33.3 (#98), Qwen3 8B: —

BenchmarkGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)Qwen3 8B
LMArena Vision1263—
Blueprint-Bench 20%—
LMArena Document1416—

Multilingual Not comparable

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 54.5 (#40), Qwen3 8B: —

BenchmarkGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)Qwen3 8B
LMArena Non-English1441—
LMArena Chinese1481—
LMArena French1476—
LMArena German1465—
LMArena Japanese1449—
LMArena Korean1417—
LMArena Russian1458—
LMArena Spanish1443—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 74.8 (#83), Qwen3 8B: —

BenchmarkGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)Qwen3 8B
LMArena Instruction Following1420—

Long Context Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 45.5 (#34), Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)

BenchmarkGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)Qwen3 8B
Fiction.LiveBench—62.1%
CL-bench22.2%—
CL-bench Life11.9%—
LMArena Longer Query1437—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 65.7 (#44), Qwen3 8B: —

BenchmarkGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)Qwen3 8B
LMArena Text1451—
LMArena Creative Writing1438—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1574—
LMArena Multi-Turn1456—

Frequently asked questions

Is Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) better than Qwen3 8B?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.6 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) or Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.18 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) lists at $1.25 and $2.50.

Is Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) or Qwen3 8B better for coding?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.1 versus 34.0 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) and Qwen3 8B share?

6 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) has 46 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.

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