# Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) vs Step 5 Preview

> Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) and Step 5 Preview score almost the same on the Noometry Index (48.6 vs 47.9), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/grok-4-20-vs-step-5-preview
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 16

## Summary

- They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) scores higher in 6 categories and Step 5 Preview in 3 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads 52.3 to 40.0.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is ProofBench: 14% for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) and 42% for Step 5 Preview.
- Step 5 Preview is cheaper at $1 / $2.70 per million input/output tokens, against $1.25 / $2.50 for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning).
- Step 5 Preview accepts more context: 1.02M tokens versus 1M.

## Snapshot

| | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | StepFun |
| Noometry Index | 48.6 | 47.9 |
| Rank | 54 | 58 |
| Context | 1M | 1.02M |
| Input $/M | $1.25 | $1 |
| Output $/M | $2.50 | $2.70 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 42.1 (#112)
- Step 5 Preview: 51.8 (#36)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1375 | 1564 |
| LMArena Coding | 1459 | 1480 |
| SciCode | — | 58.9% |
| WeirdML | 52.3% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,150 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 34.4 (#46)
- Step 5 Preview: —

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 57.3% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 18% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1189 | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 4,663 | — |

## Reasoning

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.3 (#32)
- Step 5 Preview: 40.0 (#57)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1451 | 1465 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 65.1% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 75% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 85.4% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 89.5% | — |
| CritPt | — | 20.9% |
| Chess Puzzles | 24% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 63.8% | — |
| DTBench | 90.1% | — |
| LMCA | 38.7% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 151.98 | — |
| ForecastBench | 61.4 | — |

## Math

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 48.2 (#65)
- Step 5 Preview: 46.1 (#72)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| ProofBench | 14% | 42% |
| LMArena Math | 1455 | 1470 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 44.9% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 17.1% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 92.2% | — |

## Knowledge

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.8 (#60)
- Step 5 Preview: 41.2 (#112)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1439 | 1470 |
| GPQA Diamond | 89.3% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 30.2% | — |

## Multimodal

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 33.3 (#98)
- Step 5 Preview: 41.0 (#41)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1263 | 1267 |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 0% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1416 | — |

## Multilingual

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 54.5 (#40)
- Step 5 Preview: 53.8 (#54)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1441 | 1432 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1481 | 1519 |
| LMArena Russian | 1458 | 1436 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1443 | 1439 |
| LMArena French | 1476 | — |
| LMArena German | 1465 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1449 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1417 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 74.8 (#83)
- Step 5 Preview: 76.0 (#50)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1420 | 1444 |

## Long Context

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 45.5 (#34)
- Step 5 Preview: 44.5 (#64)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1437 | 1455 |
| CL-bench | 22.2% | — |
| CL-bench Life | 11.9% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 65.7 (#44)
- Step 5 Preview: 62.8 (#71)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1451 | 1442 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1438 | 1410 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1456 | 1447 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1574 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) better than Step 5 Preview?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) and Step 5 Preview score almost the same on the Noometry Index (48.6 vs 47.9), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

### Which is cheaper, Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) or Step 5 Preview?

Step 5 Preview is cheaper. It lists at $1 per million input tokens and $2.70 per million output tokens; Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) lists at $1.25 and $2.50.

### Is Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) or Step 5 Preview better for coding?

Step 5 Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 51.8 versus 42.1 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Step 5 Preview does, with 1.02M tokens against 1M.

### How many benchmarks do Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) and Step 5 Preview share?

16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) has 46 scored results on Noometry and Step 5 Preview has 18.