# Grok 4.6 vs Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct

> Grok 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.9 to 27.9 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/grok-4-6-vs-phi-3-mini-4k-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 18

## Summary

- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok 4.6 scores higher in 8 categories and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.6 leads 61.4 to 14.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Chess Puzzles: 40% for Grok 4.6 and 0% for Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct.
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Grok 4.6 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 56.9 | 27.9 |
| Rank | 21 | 328 |
| Context | 500K | — |
| Input $/M | $2 | — |
| Output $/M | $6 | — |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Grok 4.6: 58.5 (#16)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.6 (#323)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1465 | 1093 |
| DeepSWE | 67.5% | — |
| FrontierCode | 48% | — |
| CursorBench | 41.4% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1617 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 25.3% | — |
| SciCode | 56.5% | — |
| WeirdML | 67.3% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 15.5% |
| ALE-Bench | 1,508 | — |
| HumanEval+ | — | 59.1% |
| MBPP+ | — | 54.2% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Grok 4.6: 39.4 (#27)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 65.3% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 17.2% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 9,047 | — |

## Reasoning

- Grok 4.6: 61.4 (#20)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 14.1 (#328)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 40% | 0% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1447 | 1072 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 67.1% | — |
| SimpleBench | 75.9% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 80% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 87.5% | — |
| CritPt | 19.7% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 30.5% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 26.8% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 34% | — |
| DTBench | 97.3% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 34.7% |
| LMCA | 48.5% | — |
| Adversarial NLI | — | 52.8% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 71.7% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 156.44 | — |
| HellaSwag | — | 76.7% |
| LiveBench | — | 22.4% |
| WinoGrande | — | 70.8% |

## Math

- Grok 4.6: 67.0 (#24)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.6 (#257)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1423 | 1111 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 66% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 31.7% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 99.2% | — |
| ProofBench | 51% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 15.7% |

## Knowledge

- Grok 4.6: 63.3 (#20)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 28.5 (#246)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1467 | 1045 |
| GPQA Diamond | 94% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 49.3% | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 84.9% |
| MMLU | — | 68.8% |
| OpenBookQA | — | 88% |
| TriviaQA | — | 64% |

## Multimodal

- Grok 4.6: 43.6 (#23)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1263 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 33.2% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 40% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1452 | — |

## Multilingual

- Grok 4.6: 53.0 (#74)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.3 (#280)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1420 | 1021 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1480 | 1021 |
| LMArena French | 1461 | 1076 |
| LMArena German | 1431 | 1044 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1376 | 935 |
| LMArena Korean | 1397 | 905 |
| LMArena Russian | 1422 | 1022 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1404 | 1085 |

## Instruction Following

- Grok 4.6: 75.4 (#63)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 47.7 (#303)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1431 | 1053 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 39.1% |

## Long Context

- Grok 4.6: 44.5 (#66)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 31.7 (#276)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1454 | 1044 |

## Writing & Preference

- Grok 4.6: 62.3 (#80)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 27.6 (#300)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1428 | 1073 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1428 | 1037 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1425 | 1018 |
| LiveBench Language | — | 9.2% |

## FAQ

### Is Grok 4.6 better than Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct?

Grok 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.9 to 27.9 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Grok 4.6 or Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct better for coding?

Grok 4.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 58.5 versus 26.6 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Grok 4.6 and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok 4.6 has 49 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct has 35.