Model comparison

DeepSeek-R1 vs Grok 4.5

Grok 4.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 55.0 to 42.3 on the Noometry Index. DeepSeek-R1 costs 3.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 29 shared benchmarks.

DeepSeek-R1 DeepSeek

42.3

Rank #115 Confirmed

Grok 4.5 xAI

55.0

Rank #25 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 29 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek-R1 scores higher in 1 category and Grok 4.5 in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.5 leads 56.1 to 18.6.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is ARC-AGI-1: 21.2% for DeepSeek-R1 and 87.2% for Grok 4.5.
  • DeepSeek-R1 is cheaper at $0.50 / $2.15 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Grok 4.5.
  • Grok 4.5 accepts more context: 500K tokens versus 164K.

Side by side

DeepSeek-R1 and Grok 4.5 specifications
DeepSeek-R1Grok 4.5
ProviderDeepSeekxAI
Noometry Index42.355.0
Released2025-01-202026-07-08
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window164K500K
Max output64K500K
Input $ / M tokens$0.50$2
Output $ / M tokens$2.15$6
Results tracked5252

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Category by category

Coding Grok 4.5 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 46.3 (#68), Grok 4.5: 52.2 (#35)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Grok 4.5
SciCode35.7%54.1%
WeirdML41.6%46.4%
LMArena Coding14271474
ALE-Bench804.121,309
DeepSWE—53.8%
FrontierCode—42.4%
Aider Polyglot71.4%—
LMArena WebDev—1553
LiveBench Coding66.7%—
AlgoTune1.7—

Agentic & Tool Use Grok 4.5 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 30.7 (#75), Grok 4.5: 44.4 (#17)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Grok 4.5
APEX-Agents—56.2%
τ²-bench Banking—47.9%
DeepResearch Bench35.1%—
PostTrainBench—23.4%
BALROG34.9%—
GBAEval—65.4%
GDP.pdf—14%
LMArena Search—1213
METR Time Horizons53.8%—
Vending-Bench 2—3,887

Reasoning Grok 4.5 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 18.6 (#278), Grok 4.5: 56.1 (#25)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Grok 4.5
ARC-AGI-21.3%52.6%
SimpleBench40.8%70%
Kagi LLM Benchmark69.4%83.5%
ARC-AGI-121.2%87.2%
CritPt1.1%15.4%
LMArena Hard Prompts14161462
Epoch Capabilities Index141.29153.92
NYT Connections (extended)—79.9%
Chess Puzzles—36%
LiveBench Reasoning83.2%—
DTBench—96.5%
LiveBench Data Analysis69.8%—
LMCA—45.2%
Surface Evolver Bench—74.4%
ForecastBench60—
LiveBench71.6%—

Math Grok 4.5 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 43.8 (#79), Grok 4.5: 60.9 (#35)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Grok 4.5
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202566.4%97.8%
LMArena Math14001459
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—57.2%
FrontierMath Tier 4—24.4%
ProofBench—31%
Omni-MATH42.4%—
LiveBench Math80.7%—
MATH Level 596.6%—

Knowledge Grok 4.5 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 44.5 (#87), Grok 4.5: 62.3 (#24)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Grok 4.5
GPQA Diamond76.3%93.4%
LMArena Expert13941466
SimpleQA Verified—48.3%
MMLU-Pro79.3%—
Confabulations12.7%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate11.3%—
GPQA (HELM)66.6%—

Multimodal Not comparable

DeepSeek-R1: —, Grok 4.5: 37.6 (#72)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Grok 4.5
LMArena Vision—1288
Blueprint-Bench 2—27.3%
Furniture Assembly—22.5%
LMArena Document—1452

Multilingual Grok 4.5 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 52.4 (#85), Grok 4.5: 54.4 (#42)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Grok 4.5
LMArena Non-English14121440
LMArena Chinese14421496
LMArena French14171456
LMArena German14041446
LMArena Japanese13911428
LMArena Korean13601404
LMArena Russian14231448
LMArena Spanish14111450

Instruction Following Grok 4.5 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 72.0 (#143), Grok 4.5: 76.0 (#48)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Grok 4.5
LMArena Instruction Following13821446
LiveBench Instruction Following80.5%—
IFEval78.4%—

Long Context Too close to call

DeepSeek-R1: 45.4 (#36), Grok 4.5: 44.8 (#56)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Grok 4.5
LMArena Longer Query13911463
Fiction.LiveBench75%—

Writing & Preference Grok 4.5 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 61.4 (#88), Grok 4.5: 65.8 (#42)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Grok 4.5
LMArena Text14281448
LMArena Creative Writing14051442
EQ-Bench Creative Writing15001579
LMArena Multi-Turn14051456
Short-Story Creative Writing83%—
WildBench82.8%—
LiveBench Language48.5%—

Frequently asked questions

Is DeepSeek-R1 better than Grok 4.5?

Grok 4.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 55.0 to 42.3 on the Noometry Index. DeepSeek-R1 costs 3.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-R1 or Grok 4.5?

DeepSeek-R1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.50 per million input tokens and $2.15 per million output tokens; Grok 4.5 lists at $2 and $6.

Is DeepSeek-R1 or Grok 4.5 better for coding?

Grok 4.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 52.2 versus 46.3 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Grok 4.5 does, with 500K tokens against 164K.

How many benchmarks do DeepSeek-R1 and Grok 4.5 share?

29 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek-R1 has 52 scored results on Noometry and Grok 4.5 has 52.

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