Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo vs Grok 3 Reasoning: which model should you choose?
We compared Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo and Grok 3 Reasoning on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo has the stronger average benchmark score; Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo
Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo is a frontier model from Google DeepMind. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $16.32 per million input tokens and $72.61 per million output tokens, and averages 83.9 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $16.32 / 1M
- Output
- $72.61 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 83.9
- Open weights
- No
Grok 3 Reasoning
Grok 3 Reasoning is a frontier model from xAI. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $16.07 per million input tokens and $74.65 per million output tokens, and averages 82.9 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $16.07 / 1M
- Output
- $74.65 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 82.9
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo | Grok 3 Reasoning | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $16.32 | $16.07 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $72.61 | $74.65 | A |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 200,000 | A |
| Max output | 128,000 | 16,384 | A |
| Average score | 83.9 | 82.9 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1464.0 | 1448.0 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo wins 8, Grok 3 Reasoning wins 4, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo | Grok 3 Reasoning | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 82.9 | 84.5 | 1.6 | Grok 3 Reasoning |
| GPQA Diamond | 81.7 | 77.3 | 4.4 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo |
| SWE-bench Verified | 71.4 | 74.0 | 2.6 | Grok 3 Reasoning |
| HumanEval | 88.1 | 88.5 | 0.4 | Grok 3 Reasoning |
| MATH-500 | 90.6 | 90.2 | 0.4 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo |
| AIME 2025 | 83.7 | 78.2 | 5.5 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo |
| LiveCodeBench | 78.6 | 76.5 | 2.1 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo |
| IFEval | 90.7 | 90.2 | 0.5 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo |
| TruthfulQA | 85.9 | 83.4 | 2.5 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo |
| HellaSwag | 91.2 | 89.7 | 1.5 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo |
| MMMU | 78.4 | 79.4 | 1.0 | Grok 3 Reasoning |
| Arena Elo | 1464.0 | 1448.0 | 16.0 | Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo costs about $30.39 per million tokens and Grok 3 Reasoning costs about $30.72. Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo is roughly 1% cheaper than Grok 3 Reasoning. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens, compared with 200,000 for Grok 3 Reasoning. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo wins 8, Grok 3 Reasoning wins 4, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo leads Grok 3 Reasoning by 1.0 points (83.9 versus 82.9).
The price picture favours Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo. The context picture favours Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.
If you need a single default, start with Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 1,000,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 128,000-token output limit.
Choose Grok 3 Reasoning if
- You prefer xAI's tooling or already use it.
FAQ
Is Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo better than Grok 3 Reasoning?
On the index average, Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo leads Grok 3 Reasoning by 1.0 points (83.9 versus 82.9). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo wins 8 benchmarks, Grok 3 Reasoning wins 4.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo or Grok 3 Reasoning?
Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $30.39 per million tokens, versus $30.72 for Grok 3 Reasoning.
Which has the larger context window?
Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Grok 3 Reasoning has 200,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo is proprietary; Grok 3 Reasoning is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Gemini 2.5 Pro Turbo for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.