Grok 3 Reasoning vs Grok 3 Turbo: which model should you choose?
We compared Grok 3 Reasoning and Grok 3 Turbo on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Grok 3 Turbo has the stronger average benchmark score; Grok 3 Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
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
Grok 3 Turbo
Grok 3 Turbo is a multimodal model from xAI. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $15.97 per million input tokens and $70.13 per million output tokens, and averages 83.1 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $15.97 / 1M
- Output
- $70.13 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 83.1
- Open weights
- No
Specification comparison
| Spec | Grok 3 Reasoning | Grok 3 Turbo | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $16.07 | $15.97 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $74.65 | $70.13 | B |
| Context window | 200,000 | 128,000 | A |
| Max output | 16,384 | 65,536 | B |
| Average score | 82.9 | 83.1 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1448.0 | 1438.4 | A |
| Open weights | No | No | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Grok 3 Reasoning wins 6, Grok 3 Turbo wins 6, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Grok 3 Reasoning | Grok 3 Turbo | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 84.5 | 83.7 | 0.8 | Grok 3 Reasoning |
| GPQA Diamond | 77.3 | 79.1 | 1.8 | Grok 3 Turbo |
| SWE-bench Verified | 74.0 | 71.4 | 2.6 | Grok 3 Reasoning |
| HumanEval | 88.5 | 86.8 | 1.7 | Grok 3 Reasoning |
| MATH-500 | 90.2 | 85.6 | 4.6 | Grok 3 Reasoning |
| AIME 2025 | 78.2 | 83.1 | 4.9 | Grok 3 Turbo |
| LiveCodeBench | 76.5 | 76.4 | 0.1 | Grok 3 Reasoning |
| IFEval | 90.2 | 90.7 | 0.5 | Grok 3 Turbo |
| TruthfulQA | 83.4 | 86.0 | 2.6 | Grok 3 Turbo |
| HellaSwag | 89.7 | 90.2 | 0.5 | Grok 3 Turbo |
| MMMU | 79.4 | 81.3 | 1.9 | Grok 3 Turbo |
| Arena Elo | 1448.0 | 1438.4 | 9.6 | Grok 3 Reasoning |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Grok 3 Reasoning costs about $30.72 per million tokens and Grok 3 Turbo costs about $29.51. Grok 3 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.
Grok 3 Reasoning has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Grok 3 Turbo. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Grok 3 Reasoning wins 6, Grok 3 Turbo wins 6, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Grok 3 Turbo leads Grok 3 Reasoning by 0.2 points (83.1 versus 82.9).
The price picture favours Grok 3 Turbo. The context picture favours Grok 3 Reasoning. 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 Grok 3 Turbo for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.
Choose Grok 3 Reasoning if
- You need the larger 200,000-token context window.
Choose Grok 3 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 65,536-token output limit.
FAQ
Is Grok 3 Reasoning better than Grok 3 Turbo?
On the index average, Grok 3 Turbo leads Grok 3 Reasoning by 0.2 points (83.1 versus 82.9). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Grok 3 Reasoning wins 6 benchmarks, Grok 3 Turbo wins 6.
Which is cheaper, Grok 3 Reasoning or Grok 3 Turbo?
Grok 3 Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $29.51 per million tokens, versus $30.72 for Grok 3 Reasoning.
Which has the larger context window?
Grok 3 Reasoning has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens. Grok 3 Turbo has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Grok 3 Reasoning is proprietary; Grok 3 Turbo is proprietary.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Grok 3 Turbo for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.