# Grok 4.6 vs Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

> Grok 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.8 to 31.5 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/grok-4-6-vs-qwen2-5-72b-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 23

## Summary

- They share 23 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok 4.6 scores higher in 9 categories and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Grok 4.6 leads 66.8 to 18.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 99.2% for Grok 4.6 and 8.1% for Qwen2.5 72B Instruct.
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is cheaper at $1.40 / $5.60 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Grok 4.6.
- Grok 4.6 accepts more context: 500K tokens versus 131K.
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Grok 4.6 | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 56.8 | 31.5 |
| Rank | 19 | 259 |
| Context | 500K | 131K |
| Input $/M | $2 | $1.40 |
| Output $/M | $6 | $5.60 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Grok 4.6: 58.0 (#14)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 32.8 (#256)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| WeirdML | 67.3% | 16% |
| LMArena Coding | 1464 | 1293 |
| DeepSWE | 67.5% | — |
| FrontierCode | 48% | — |
| CursorBench | 41.4% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1620 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 25.3% | — |
| SciCode | 56.5% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.8% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 55.9% |
| ALE-Bench | 1,508 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Grok 4.6: 39.4 (#25)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 22.0 (#124)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 65.3% | — |
| TheAgentCompany | — | 5.7% |
| BALROG | — | 16.2% |
| GDP.pdf | 17.2% | — |
| METR Time Horizons | — | 35.8% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 9,047 | — |

## Reasoning

- Grok 4.6: 61.3 (#18)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 21.4 (#197)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1445 | 1271 |
| DTBench | 97.3% | 62.9% |
| LMCA | 48.5% | 13.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 156.48 | 129.01 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 67.1% | — |
| SimpleBench | 75.9% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 80% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 87.5% | — |
| CritPt | 19.7% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 40% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 30.5% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 34% | — |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 79.8% |
| ForecastBench | — | 57.5 |
| HellaSwag | — | 84.8% |
| PIQA | — | 82.6% |
| WinoGrande | — | 82.3% |

## Math

- Grok 4.6: 66.8 (#19)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 18.1 (#281)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 99.2% | 8.1% |
| LMArena Math | 1416 | 1283 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 66% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 31.7% | — |
| ProofBench | 51% | — |
| Omni-MATH | — | 33% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 63.2% |

## Knowledge

- Grok 4.6: 63.3 (#18)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 26.9 (#247)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 94% | 49.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1463 | 1245 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 49.3% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 63.1% |
| Confabulations | — | 19.1% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 42.6% |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 94.5% |
| MMLU | — | 85.3% |
| TriviaQA | — | 71.9% |

## Multimodal

- Grok 4.6: 43.9 (#18)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1265 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 33.2% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 40% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1452 | — |

## Multilingual

- Grok 4.6: 53.3 (#67)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 41.2 (#208)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1422 | 1252 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1479 | 1272 |
| LMArena French | 1458 | 1279 |
| LMArena German | 1425 | 1234 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1383 | 1180 |
| LMArena Korean | 1395 | 1188 |
| LMArena Russian | 1427 | 1264 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1408 | 1255 |

## Instruction Following

- Grok 4.6: 75.6 (#59)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 65.7 (#216)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1431 | 1254 |
| IFEval | — | 80.6% |

## Long Context

- Grok 4.6: 44.4 (#62)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 38.9 (#183)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1453 | 1282 |

## Writing & Preference

- Grok 4.6: 62.5 (#77)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 46.9 (#210)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1427 | 1269 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1430 | 1221 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1422 | 1272 |
| WildBench | — | 80.2% |

## FAQ

### Is Grok 4.6 better than Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?

Grok 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.8 to 31.5 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Grok 4.6 or Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is cheaper. It lists at $1.40 per million input tokens and $5.60 per million output tokens; Grok 4.6 lists at $2 and $6.

### Is Grok 4.6 or Qwen2.5 72B Instruct better for coding?

Grok 4.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 58.0 versus 32.8 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Grok 4.6 does, with 500K tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Grok 4.6 and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct share?

23 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok 4.6 has 49 scored results on Noometry and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct has 43.