Which model is better: Grok 3 Mini or Qwen 3.8 27B?
Qwen 3.8 27B is 33.3% cheaper for input tokens ($0.20 vs. $0.30 per 1M tokens) and $0.60 vs. $1.20 for output tokens (1.5x cost advantage). In terms of operational performance, Qwen 3.8 27B delivers lower response latency at 120ms TTFT (30ms faster than Grok 3 Mini) with 140 vs. 160 tok/s throughput. Qwen 3.8 27B leads coding evaluations at 58.4% SWE-bench Verified vs. 54.0% for Grok 3 Mini and 68.0% vs. 68.0% on GPQA Diamond.
Verified daily via automated API latency tests and official documentation.
Zero-Shot RAG Verified
Verified Performance & Unit Economics Delta (12 Dimensions)
Daily synchronized metrics across token pricing, prompt cache economics, latency, throughput, and 5 capability benchmarks.
Metric / Dimension
Grok 3 Mini
Qwen 3.8 27B
Net Delta / Advantage
Input Cost / 1M Tokens
$0.30
$0.20
Qwen 3.8 27B is 1.5x cheaper
Output Cost / 1M Tokens
$1.20
$0.60
Qwen 3.8 27B (50.0% lower)
Prompt Cache Read / 1M
$0.080
$0.050
Qwen 3.8 27B is 1.6x cheaper
Prompt Cache Write / 1M
$0.30
$0.20
Qwen 3.8 27B is 1.5x cheaper
Context Window (Max Output)
131k (16k out)
131k (16k out)
Equal Context Window
Avg TTFT Response Latency
150ms
120ms
Qwen 3.8 27B (30ms faster)
Generation Speed (Throughput)
160 tok/s
140 tok/s
Grok 3 Mini (+20 tok/s faster)
SWE-bench Verified (Coding)
54%
58.4%
Qwen 3.8 27B (+4.4% lead)
GPQA Diamond (PhD STEM)
68%
68%
Comparable Score
MMLU-Pro (Multi-Discipline)
80%
81.2%
Qwen 3.8 27B (+1.2% lead)
MATH-500 (Quantitative Logic)
87%
86.4%
Grok 3 Mini (+0.6% lead)
Inference Value Score (IVR)
69.2 / 100
74.9 / 100
Qwen 3.8 27B (+5.7 pts)
Interactive Monthly Token Economics & ROI Forecaster
Model production workloads across prompt, completion, and cached context tokens, or switch models on the fly.
Choose Grok 3 Mini (xAI) for high-speed reasoning model providing rapid answers and code generation with chain-of-thought capabilities at edge pricing — offering a 131k context window, 150ms TTFT, and $0.30/1M input pricing ($0.080/1M cached reads).
Choose Qwen 3.8 27B (Alibaba Cloud) for high-performance 27B open weights optimized for local deployment, code generation, and low-latency production pipelines — offering a 131k context window, 120ms TTFT, and $0.20/1M input pricing ($0.050/1M cached reads).
Qwen 3.8 27B is cheaper at $0.20/1M input tokens ($0.60/1M output) compared to $0.30/1M input ($1.20/1M output) for Grok 3 Mini.
Which model has lower TTFT latency and higher tok/s throughput: Grok 3 Mini or Qwen 3.8 27B?
Qwen 3.8 27B delivers faster first-token latency at 120ms TTFT (140 tok/s throughput) compared to 150ms TTFT (160 tok/s) for Grok 3 Mini.
How do Grok 3 Mini and Qwen 3.8 27B compare on SWE-bench coding and GPQA Diamond reasoning?
On SWE-bench Verified software engineering, Grok 3 Mini scores 54% versus 58.4% for Qwen 3.8 27B. On GPQA Diamond graduate-level STEM reasoning, Grok 3 Mini scores 68% versus 68% for Qwen 3.8 27B (and 87% vs 86.4% on MATH-500).
When should you choose Grok 3 Mini?
Choose Grok 3 Mini (xAI) for high-speed reasoning model providing rapid answers and code generation with chain-of-thought capabilities at edge pricing — offering a 131k context window, 150ms TTFT, and $0.30/1M input pricing ($0.080/1M cached reads).
When should you choose Qwen 3.8 27B?
Choose Qwen 3.8 27B (Alibaba Cloud) for high-performance 27B open weights optimized for local deployment, code generation, and low-latency production pipelines — offering a 131k context window, 120ms TTFT, and $0.20/1M input pricing ($0.050/1M cached reads).
