Compare/Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B

Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning)vsQwen3.8 2.4T A95B

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

Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B

Input
$2/M
Output
$6/M
Speed
45 tok/s
TTFT
2.53s

Winner by Category

Cheaper
Tie
Faster (tok/s)
Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B
Lower Latency
Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B
Benchmarks (0-2)
Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B

Pricing Comparison

MetricGrok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning)Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B
Input ($/M tokens)$2$2
Output ($/M tokens)$6$6
Cost for 1M input + 100K output tokens:
Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning)$2.60
Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B$2.60

Speed Comparison

Output Speed (tokens/s) — higher is better
Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning)
Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B
45 tok/s
Time to First Token (seconds) — lower is better
Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning)
Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B
2.53s

Editorial Analysis

Verdict. Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B takes the aggregate benchmark matchup 2–0 across 2 categories. Real workloads usually care about a handful of specific tasks — see the per-benchmark table above.

Pricing. Both models sit in the mid-tier bracket for output-token pricing. At 1.0× the per-million-token cost, Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B is meaningfully cheaper if your traffic is output-heavy (long completions, document generation, agent loops). Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B makes more sense when output volume is low and absolute reasoning quality justifies the premium.

Strengths. Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning) is strongest on Intelligence Index (37.4). Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B leads on Coding Index (71.9), Intelligence Index (57.7).

Speed. Speed data is incomplete for this pair; benchmark and price should decide.

Provider. SpaceXAI and Alibaba sell to overlapping but distinct developer audiences: SpaceXAI tends to ship frontier reasoning models with premium positioning, while Alibaba often prices more aggressively. Your existing vendor relationships, billing, and SLA preferences may matter as much as the raw numbers above.

Workload cost. Workload scenarios (per million requests at 30M input + 15M output tokens): Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning) costs $150.00 ($1800/year); Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B costs $150.00 ($1800/year). At a smaller 5M-input/2M-output scale (single-developer tool or prototype): Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning) ≈ $22.00/run, Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B ≈ $22.00/run. At agent/realtime scale (200M input / 100M output per million requests): Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning) ≈ $1000/run, Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B ≈ $1000/run.

Recommendation. Both models have legitimate use cases — the right answer depends on whether you are optimizing for benchmark ceiling, latency, or unit cost. Start with the cheaper / faster model, evaluate against your specific task, and only switch if the upgrade shows a meaningful lift.

Benchmark Comparison

Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks

Intelligence Index
37.457.7
Coding Index
71.9
Math Index
GPQA Diamond
MMLU-Pro
LiveCodeBench
AIME 2025
MATH-500
Humanity's Last Exam
SciCode
IFBench
TerminalBench
Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning)0 wins
2 winsQwen3.8 2.4T A95B

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is cheaper, Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning) or Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B?

Both models have similar pricing. Check the detailed breakdown above for input vs output token costs.

Which model performs better on benchmarks?

Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B wins 2 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 0 for Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning). See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.

Which is faster for real-time applications?

Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B generates tokens faster at 45 tok/s vs — tok/s. However, Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B has lower time-to-first-token (2.53s vs —s).

When should I use Grok 4.20 0309 (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B?

Choose based on your priorities: both are similarly priced, Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B for stronger benchmark performance, and Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.