# DeepSeek-R1 vs Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)

> Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.6 to 42.3 on the Noometry Index. DeepSeek-R1 costs 1.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/deepseek-r1-vs-grok-4-20
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 27

## Summary

- They share 27 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek-R1 scores higher in 1 category and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads 52.3 to 18.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is ARC-AGI-1: 21.2% for DeepSeek-R1 and 89.5% for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning).
- DeepSeek-R1 is cheaper at $0.50 / $2.15 per million input/output tokens, against $1.25 / $2.50 for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning).
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 164K.

## Snapshot

| | DeepSeek-R1 | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | DeepSeek | xAI |
| Noometry Index | 42.3 | 48.6 |
| Rank | 115 | 54 |
| Context | 164K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.50 | $1.25 |
| Output $/M | $2.15 | $2.50 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |

## Coding

- DeepSeek-R1: 46.3 (#68)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 42.1 (#112)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| WeirdML | 41.6% | 52.3% |
| LMArena Coding | 1427 | 1459 |
| ALE-Bench | 804.12 | 1,150 |
| Aider Polyglot | 71.4% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1375 |
| SciCode | 35.7% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 66.7% | — |
| AlgoTune | 1.7 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- DeepSeek-R1: 30.7 (#75)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 34.4 (#46)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 57.3% |
| τ²-bench Banking | — | 18% |
| DeepResearch Bench | 35.1% | — |
| BALROG | 34.9% | — |
| LMArena Search | — | 1189 |
| METR Time Horizons | 53.8% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 4,663 |

## Reasoning

- DeepSeek-R1: 18.6 (#278)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.3 (#32)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 1.3% | 65.1% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 69.4% | 75% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 21.2% | 89.5% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1416 | 1451 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 141.29 | 151.98 |
| ForecastBench | 60 | 61.4 |
| SimpleBench | 40.8% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 85.4% |
| CritPt | 1.1% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 24% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 63.8% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 83.2% | — |
| DTBench | — | 90.1% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 69.8% | — |
| LMCA | — | 38.7% |
| LiveBench | 71.6% | — |

## Math

- DeepSeek-R1: 43.8 (#79)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 48.2 (#65)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 66.4% | 92.2% |
| LMArena Math | 1400 | 1455 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 44.9% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 17.1% |
| ProofBench | — | 14% |
| Omni-MATH | 42.4% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 80.7% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 96.6% | — |

## Knowledge

- DeepSeek-R1: 44.5 (#87)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.8 (#60)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 76.3% | 89.3% |
| LMArena Expert | 1394 | 1439 |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 30.2% |
| MMLU-Pro | 79.3% | — |
| Confabulations | 12.7% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 11.3% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 66.6% | — |

## Multimodal

- DeepSeek-R1: —
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 33.3 (#98)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1263 |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | — | 0% |
| LMArena Document | — | 1416 |

## Multilingual

- DeepSeek-R1: 52.4 (#85)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 54.5 (#40)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1412 | 1441 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1442 | 1481 |
| LMArena French | 1417 | 1476 |
| LMArena German | 1404 | 1465 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1391 | 1449 |
| LMArena Korean | 1360 | 1417 |
| LMArena Russian | 1423 | 1458 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1411 | 1443 |

## Instruction Following

- DeepSeek-R1: 72.0 (#143)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 74.8 (#83)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1382 | 1420 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 80.5% | — |
| IFEval | 78.4% | — |

## Long Context

- DeepSeek-R1: 45.4 (#36)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 45.5 (#34)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1391 | 1437 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 75% | — |
| CL-bench | — | 22.2% |
| CL-bench Life | — | 11.9% |

## Writing & Preference

- DeepSeek-R1: 61.4 (#88)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 65.7 (#44)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1428 | 1451 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1405 | 1438 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1500 | 1574 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1405 | 1456 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 83% | — |
| WildBench | 82.8% | — |
| LiveBench Language | 48.5% | — |

## FAQ

### Is DeepSeek-R1 better than Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.6 to 42.3 on the Noometry Index. DeepSeek-R1 costs 1.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-R1 or Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)?

DeepSeek-R1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.50 per million input tokens and $2.15 per million output tokens; Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) lists at $1.25 and $2.50.

### Is DeepSeek-R1 or Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) better for coding?

DeepSeek-R1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.3 versus 42.1 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) does, with 1M tokens against 164K.

### How many benchmarks do DeepSeek-R1 and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) share?

27 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek-R1 has 52 scored results on Noometry and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) has 46.