Compare / head-to-head

Grok 4.6vsStep 5 Preview

Grok 4.6 leads 3 of 5 shared benchmarks. Step 5 Preview is 2.2x cheaper per token. Step 5 Preview has the larger context window (1M tokens).

Benchmarks from cited public sources; pricing from official pages; status from official provider feeds.

Shared benchmarks
3 – 1
Grok 4.6 leads · 1 tied
Cheaper per token
Step 5 Preview
2.2x cheaper, input + output
Larger context
Step 5 Preview
1M tokens
Providers
2 providers
xAI · StepFun
Grok 4.6
xAI · released 2026-08-12
textvision
Context
500K
Max out
—
Input /1M
$2 ↗
Output /1M
$6 ↗
Cached /1M
$0.5
Scores
43 · 9 core
Step 5 Preview
StepFun · released 2026-09-20
textvisionvideo
Context
1M
Max out
64K
Input /1M
$1 ↗
Output /1M
$2.7 ↗
Cached /1M
$0.05
Scores
5 · 4 core
Quality

Benchmark matrix

BenchmarkGrok 4.6Step 5 PreviewΔEdge
Reported by both · 5
LMArena Elo1453.8 ↗1453.7 ↗+0.1Grok 4.6
LMArena Agent (LMArena)0.0128 ↗0.0048 ↗0Tie
LMArena Vision (LMArena)1263.5 ↗1259.7 ↗+3.8Grok 4.6
LMArena WebDev (LMArena)1619.5 ↗1570.2 ↗+49.3Grok 4.6
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals AI)17.2% ↗31.8% ↗-14.6 ptStep 5 Preview
Only Grok 4.6 reports · 33
GPQA Diamond94% ↗epoch runnot reported——
AA-Briefcase1577 ↗not reported——
APEX-Agents57.5% ↗not reported——
APEX-Agents (Mercor)65.3% ↗not reported——
APEX-SWE56.4% ↗not reported——
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index61 ↗not reported——
Chess Puzzles (Epoch AI run)40% ↗epoch runnot reported——
CursorBench 3.269.9% ↗not reported——
DeepSWE v1.165.9% ↗not reported——
DeepSWE v1.1 (Datacurve)67.5% ↗not reported——
EBR-bench (Epoch AI run)30.5% ↗epoch runnot reported——
FrontierCode v1.1 (Extended)61.3% ↗not reported——
FrontierMath Tier 4 v2 (Epoch AI run)31.7% ↗epoch runnot reported——
FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 v2 (Epoch AI run)66% ↗epoch runnot reported——
FrontierSWE V2 (Proximal Labs)25.3% ↗not reported——
Furniture Assembly (Epoch AI run)40% ↗epoch runnot reported——
GDPVal-AA v21753 ↗not reported——
Harvey LAB (Vals)15.8% ↗not reported——
LiveBench Agentic Coding (LiveBench)57% ↗not reported——
LiveBench Coding (LiveBench)76.8% ↗not reported——
LiveBench Data Analysis (LiveBench)73.9% ↗not reported——
LiveBench Instruction Following (LiveBench)71.9% ↗not reported——
LiveBench Language (LiveBench)83.7% ↗not reported——
LiveBench Mathematics (LiveBench)92.6% ↗not reported——
LiveBench Reasoning (LiveBench)90.5% ↗not reported——
Mystery Game Puzzles (Epoch AI run)34% ↗epoch runnot reported——
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 (Epoch AI run)99.2% ↗epoch runnot reported——
SAGE (Vals AI)28.9% ↗not reported——
SimpleBench (SimpleBench)75.9% ↗not reported——
SimpleQA Verified49.3% ↗epoch runnot reported——
Terminal-Bench 3.026% ↗not reported——
Vending-Bench 2 (Andon Labs)9047.03 ↗not reported——
WeirdML (Håvard Tveit Ihle)67.3% ↗not reported——
Only Step 5 Preview reports · 0
Step 5 Preview reports nothing Grok 4.6 does not.
Scores tagged "epoch" or "matharena" are independent runs, used only where the lab has not published its own; ⚠ marks rows MathArena flags as released after the competition. Higher is better on every row. Δ is Grok 4.6 minus Step 5 Preview in the benchmark's own unit. "Not reported" means the lab has not published that figure; it is not a zero. ↗ opens the source.
Specs & pricing

Side by side

SpecGrok 4.6Step 5 PreviewEdge
Context window500K tokens1M tokensStep 5 Preview
Max output—64K tokens—
Input price / 1M$2 ↗$1 ↗Step 5 Preview
Output price / 1M$6 ↗$2.7 ↗Step 5 Preview
Cached input / 1M$0.5 ↗$0.05 ↗Step 5 Preview
Input + output / 1M
Lower is cheaper. List prices; batch, tool and regional fees excluded.
$8$3.7Step 5 Preview
Modalitiestext · visiontext · vision · videoStep 5 Preview
Released2026-08-122026-09-20—
Cited benchmark scores435—
Reliability

Provider status

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