Model comparison
Grok-2 (Dec 2024) vs Mercury 2
Mercury 2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.1 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok-2 (Dec 2024) scores higher in 0 categories and Mercury 2 in 7 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Mercury 2 leads 23.8 to 16.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is WeirdML: 22.2% for Grok-2 (Dec 2024) and 43.2% for Mercury 2.
Side by side
| Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Mercury 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Inception |
| Noometry Index | 33.7 | 39.1 |
| Released | 2024-08-13 | 2026-02-20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | — | 128K |
| Max output | — | 50K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.25 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $0.75 |
| Results tracked | 34 | 17 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 33.3 (#258), Mercury 2: 33.5 (#255)
| Benchmark | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| WeirdML | 22.2% | 43.2% |
| LMArena Coding | 1287 | 1391 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1171 |
| SciCode | — | 38.7% |
| LiveBench Coding | 46.4% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 785.58 |
Reasoning Mercury 2 leads
Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 16.9 (#299), Mercury 2: 23.8 (#170)
| Benchmark | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1272 | 1362 |
| SimpleBench | 22.7% | — |
| CritPt | — | 0.8% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 54.8% | — |
| DTBench | 65.2% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 54.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 130.48 | — |
| LiveBench | 54.3% | — |
Math Not comparable
Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 20.8 (#284), Mercury 2: —
| Benchmark | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 11.5% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 54.9% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1283 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 63.5% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 0.7% | — |
Knowledge Mercury 2 leads
Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 29.8 (#233), Mercury 2: 36.2 (#172)
| Benchmark | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1254 | 1358 |
| GPQA Diamond | 53.8% | — |
| Confabulations | 20.1% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 12.3% |
Multilingual Mercury 2 leads
Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 43.1 (#188), Mercury 2: 46.6 (#157)
| Benchmark | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1282 | 1331 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1289 | 1417 |
| LMArena Russian | 1286 | 1304 |
| LMArena French | 1318 | — |
| LMArena German | 1287 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1244 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1237 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1281 | — |
Instruction Following Mercury 2 leads
Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 66.9 (#202), Mercury 2: 70.2 (#165)
| Benchmark | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1270 | 1329 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 69.6% | — |
Long Context Mercury 2 leads
Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 38.8 (#190), Mercury 2: 40.5 (#154)
| Benchmark | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1276 | 1330 |
Writing & Preference Mercury 2 leads
Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 48.6 (#198), Mercury 2: 53.8 (#155)
| Benchmark | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1305 | 1355 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1284 | 1289 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1290 | 1358 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 63.6% | — |
| LiveBench Language | 45.6% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Grok-2 (Dec 2024) better than Mercury 2?
Mercury 2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.1 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index.
Is Grok-2 (Dec 2024) or Mercury 2 better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (33.3 vs 33.5); test both on your own repository before choosing.
How many benchmarks do Grok-2 (Dec 2024) and Mercury 2 share?
12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok-2 (Dec 2024) has 34 scored results on Noometry and Mercury 2 has 17.