GPT-4.1 Turbo vs Grok 3 Reasoning: which model should you choose?
We compared GPT-4.1 Turbo and Grok 3 Reasoning on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. GPT-4.1 Turbo and Grok 3 Reasoning are effectively tied on the index average; GPT-4.1 Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
GPT-4.1 Turbo
GPT-4.1 Turbo is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $16.12 per million input tokens and $69.91 per million output tokens, and averages 82.9 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $16.12 / 1M
- Output
- $69.91 / 1M
- Context
- 1,000,000
- Avg score
- 82.9
- 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 | GPT-4.1 Turbo | Grok 3 Reasoning | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $16.12 | $16.07 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $69.91 | $74.65 | A |
| Context window | 1,000,000 | 200,000 | A |
| Max output | 128,000 | 16,384 | A |
| Average score | 82.9 | 82.9 | Tie |
| Arena Elo | 1446.2 | 1448.0 | B |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
GPT-4.1 Turbo wins 6, Grok 3 Reasoning wins 6, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 Turbo | Grok 3 Reasoning | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 84.6 | 84.5 | 0.1 | GPT-4.1 Turbo |
| GPQA Diamond | 76.1 | 77.3 | 1.2 | Grok 3 Reasoning |
| SWE-bench Verified | 74.7 | 74.0 | 0.7 | GPT-4.1 Turbo |
| HumanEval | 89.8 | 88.5 | 1.3 | GPT-4.1 Turbo |
| MATH-500 | 86.9 | 90.2 | 3.3 | Grok 3 Reasoning |
| AIME 2025 | 77.4 | 78.2 | 0.8 | Grok 3 Reasoning |
| LiveCodeBench | 78.7 | 76.5 | 2.2 | GPT-4.1 Turbo |
| IFEval | 88.2 | 90.2 | 2.0 | Grok 3 Reasoning |
| TruthfulQA | 87.0 | 83.4 | 3.6 | GPT-4.1 Turbo |
| HellaSwag | 90.0 | 89.7 | 0.3 | GPT-4.1 Turbo |
| MMMU | 78.5 | 79.4 | 0.9 | Grok 3 Reasoning |
| Arena Elo | 1446.2 | 1448.0 | 1.8 | Grok 3 Reasoning |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, GPT-4.1 Turbo costs about $29.57 per million tokens and Grok 3 Reasoning costs about $30.72. GPT-4.1 Turbo is roughly 4% cheaper than Grok 3 Reasoning. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
GPT-4.1 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, GPT-4.1 Turbo wins 6, Grok 3 Reasoning wins 6, and 0 are tied. The two models are effectively tied on the index average at 82.9.
The price picture favours GPT-4.1 Turbo. The context picture favours GPT-4.1 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 GPT-4.1 Turbo; it is cheaper on a blended basis and has the larger context window. Test it on your own traffic before committing.
Choose GPT-4.1 Turbo if
- 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 GPT-4.1 Turbo better than Grok 3 Reasoning?
The two models are effectively tied on the index average at 82.9. The better choice depends on price, context and your task. GPT-4.1 Turbo wins 6 benchmarks, Grok 3 Reasoning wins 6.
Which is cheaper, GPT-4.1 Turbo or Grok 3 Reasoning?
GPT-4.1 Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $29.57 per million tokens, versus $30.72 for Grok 3 Reasoning.
Which has the larger context window?
GPT-4.1 Turbo has the larger context window at 1,000,000 tokens. Grok 3 Reasoning has 200,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
GPT-4.1 Turbo is proprietary; Grok 3 Reasoning is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with GPT-4.1 Turbo; it is cheaper on a blended basis and has the larger context window. Test it on your own traffic before committing.