Model comparison
Grok 4.6 vs Step 3
Grok 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.9 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 16 shared benchmarks.
StepFunSummary
- They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok 4.6 scores higher in 9 categories and Step 3 in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.6 leads 61.4 to 28.4.
- Step 3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Grok 4.6 | Step 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | StepFun |
| Noometry Index | 56.9 | 40.5 |
| Released | 2026-08-12 | — |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 500K | — |
| Max output | 500K | — |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | — |
| Output $ / M tokens | $6 | — |
| Results tracked | 49 | 17 |
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Category by category
Coding Grok 4.6 leads
Grok 4.6: 58.5 (#16), Step 3: 40.1 (#147)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1465 | 1367 |
| DeepSWE | 67.5% | — |
| FrontierCode | 48% | — |
| CursorBench | 41.4% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1617 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 25.3% | — |
| SciCode | 56.5% | — |
| WeirdML | 67.3% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,508 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Grok 4.6: 39.4 (#27), Step 3: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 65.3% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 17.2% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 9,047 | — |
Reasoning Grok 4.6 leads
Grok 4.6: 61.4 (#20), Step 3: 28.4 (#105)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1447 | 1355 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 67.1% | — |
| SimpleBench | 75.9% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 62.3% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 80% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 87.5% | — |
| CritPt | 19.7% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 40% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 30.5% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 34% | — |
| DTBench | 97.3% | — |
| LMCA | 48.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 156.44 | — |
Math Grok 4.6 leads
Grok 4.6: 67.0 (#24), Step 3: 37.6 (#148)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1423 | 1366 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 66% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 31.7% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 99.2% | — |
| ProofBench | 51% | — |
Knowledge Grok 4.6 leads
Grok 4.6: 63.3 (#20), Step 3: 36.8 (#164)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1467 | 1333 |
| GPQA Diamond | 94% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 49.3% | — |
Multimodal Grok 4.6 leads
Grok 4.6: 43.6 (#23), Step 3: 35.5 (#86)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1263 | 1177 |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 33.2% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 40% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1452 | — |
Multilingual Grok 4.6 leads
Grok 4.6: 53.0 (#74), Step 3: 46.3 (#159)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1420 | 1327 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1480 | 1397 |
| LMArena German | 1431 | 1371 |
| LMArena Korean | 1397 | 1269 |
| LMArena Russian | 1422 | 1331 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1404 | 1371 |
| LMArena French | 1461 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1376 | — |
Instruction Following Grok 4.6 leads
Grok 4.6: 75.4 (#63), Step 3: 70.4 (#164)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1431 | 1332 |
Long Context Grok 4.6 leads
Grok 4.6: 44.5 (#66), Step 3: 40.3 (#157)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1454 | 1326 |
Writing & Preference Grok 4.6 leads
Grok 4.6: 62.3 (#80), Step 3: 54.3 (#151)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1428 | 1350 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1428 | 1321 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1425 | 1341 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Grok 4.6 better than Step 3?
Grok 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.9 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index.
Is Grok 4.6 or Step 3 better for coding?
Grok 4.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 58.5 versus 40.1 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Grok 4.6 and Step 3 share?
16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok 4.6 has 49 scored results on Noometry and Step 3 has 17.