# Grok-2 (Dec 2024) vs Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

> Grok-2 (Dec 2024) is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.7 to 31.9 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/grok-2-vs-qwen2-5-72b-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 24

## Summary

- They share 24 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok-2 (Dec 2024) scores higher in 6 categories and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct in 2 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen2.5 72B Instruct leads 22.3 to 16.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is WeirdML: 22.2% for Grok-2 (Dec 2024) and 16% for Qwen2.5 72B Instruct.
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 33.7 | 31.9 |
| Rank | 239 | 267 |
| Context | — | 131K |
| Input $/M | — | $1.40 |
| Output $/M | — | $5.60 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 33.3 (#258)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 33.2 (#260)

| Benchmark | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| WeirdML | 22.2% | 16% |
| LMArena Coding | 1287 | 1292 |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.8% |
| LiveBench Coding | 46.4% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 55.9% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Grok-2 (Dec 2024): —
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 22.1 (#133)

| Benchmark | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| TheAgentCompany | — | 5.7% |
| BALROG | — | 16.2% |
| METR Time Horizons | — | 35.8% |

## Reasoning

- Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 16.9 (#299)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 22.3 (#199)

| Benchmark | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1272 | 1271 |
| DTBench | 65.2% | 62.9% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 130.48 | 129 |
| SimpleBench | 22.7% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 54.8% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 54.5% | — |
| LMCA | — | 13.4% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 79.8% |
| ForecastBench | — | 57.5 |
| HellaSwag | — | 84.8% |
| LiveBench | 54.3% | — |
| PIQA | — | 82.6% |
| WinoGrande | — | 82.3% |

## Math

- Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 20.8 (#284)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 19.3 (#287)

| Benchmark | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 11.5% | 8.1% |
| LMArena Math | 1283 | 1283 |
| MATH Level 5 | 63.5% | 63.2% |
| Omni-MATH | — | 33% |
| LiveBench Math | 54.9% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 0.7% | — |

## Knowledge

- Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 29.8 (#233)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 27.0 (#253)

| Benchmark | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 53.8% | 49.1% |
| Confabulations | 20.1% | 19.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1254 | 1245 |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 63.1% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 42.6% |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 94.5% |
| MMLU | — | 85.3% |
| TriviaQA | — | 71.9% |

## Multilingual

- Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 43.1 (#188)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 41.0 (#213)

| Benchmark | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1282 | 1252 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1289 | 1272 |
| LMArena French | 1318 | 1280 |
| LMArena German | 1287 | 1234 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1244 | 1180 |
| LMArena Korean | 1237 | 1188 |
| LMArena Russian | 1286 | 1264 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1281 | 1256 |

## Instruction Following

- Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 66.9 (#202)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 65.5 (#221)

| Benchmark | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1270 | 1254 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 69.6% | — |
| IFEval | — | 80.6% |

## Long Context

- Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 38.8 (#190)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 38.9 (#188)

| Benchmark | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1276 | 1282 |

## Writing & Preference

- Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 48.6 (#198)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 46.7 (#215)

| Benchmark | Grok-2 (Dec 2024) | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1305 | 1269 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1284 | 1221 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1290 | 1272 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 63.6% | — |
| WildBench | — | 80.2% |
| LiveBench Language | 45.6% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Grok-2 (Dec 2024) better than Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?

Grok-2 (Dec 2024) is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.7 to 31.9 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Grok-2 (Dec 2024) or Qwen2.5 72B Instruct better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (33.3 vs 33.2); test both on your own repository before choosing.

### How many benchmarks do Grok-2 (Dec 2024) and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct share?

24 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok-2 (Dec 2024) has 34 scored results on Noometry and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct has 43.