deepseek-v4-pro vs grok-4-1-fast-reasoning

Capability for the money

Not the same tier: deepseek-v4-pro leads grok-4-1-fast-reasoning by 23.8 points on following instructions (IFBench), for 2.0× the price. They are level on tool use (τ²-bench) and hard reasoning (GPQA Diamond), so the premium only pays off on following instructions work.

1. Following instructions

   extraction, classification, sticking to a format

   IFBench
   deepseek-v4-pro76.5%

   grok-4-1-fast-reasoning52.7%

   deepseek-v4-pro +23.8

2. Tool use

   multi-step agent work against real tools

   τ²-bench
   deepseek-v4-pro96.2%

   grok-4-1-fast-reasoning93.3%

   deepseek-v4-pro +2.9

3. Hard reasoning

   graduate-level science and multi-step analysis

   GPQA Diamond
   deepseek-v4-pro88.8%

   grok-4-1-fast-reasoning85.3%

   deepseek-v4-pro +3.5

Averaged over the benchmarks both models sat, grok-4-1-fast-reasoning returns 280.4 points of pass rate per dollar of blended price against 160.3 — the ratio that decides whether the dearer model earns its rate.

Each figure is a pass rate: the share of that test set the model answered correctly, measured by a third party rather than self-reported by the lab. Rows are different tests of different difficulty, so compare a model against the other model, not one row against the next. No published coding score for one of these models, so that lens is omitted. And a benchmark is not your workload — it narrows the shortlist, it does not pick for you.