Grok 4.5 First Tests: Faster, Cheaper, and Entering Coding Workflows

After its release in mid-July, Grok 4.5 received a wave of first-hand feedback from developers and reviewers. The conclusions are highly consistent: compared to predecessors and peers, it is faster, cheaper, and sufficiently smart, entering coding workflows like Cursor and Amp with high cost-effectiveness. "Faster and more economical" has become the greatest common divisor of this feedback.

Benchmark Scores and Cost-Effectiveness

rasbt included Grok 4.5 and Meta's Muse Spark 1.1 in an updated comparison chart, placing the former on the Pareto frontier of cost-effectiveness. A video studio eval reposted by Elon Musk showed its score jumping from 6/33 to 23/33, with cost efficiency described as outstanding. Other reposts claim Grok 4.5 reached Claude Opus levels in browser usage scenarios, surpassing GPT-5.6-Sol and approaching Opus in one eval. However, due to high cached input costs, it is only about 10% cheaper than Opus overall, though slightly faster. zeeg stated that a weekend benchmark run didn't change his view, still considering Grok 4.5 perhaps the "best value," while noting GPT 5.6 Luna is also competitive on Warden's security bench.

Hands-on Tests in Coding Tools

Multiple developers expressed pleasant surprise testing Grok 4.5 in coding tools like Cursor and Amp: long tasks are very fast and usable, with Cursor pricing at about half of the original. Feedback indicates that, unlike using GPT 5.5 or Claude Opus, Grok 4.5 completes tasks so quickly that users need to return to the session more frequently, altering their workflows. bytebot noted reasonable usage under an $8/month X account plan, and tetsuoai summarized it as "faster, smarter, and cheaper."

2026-07-12 ~ 2026-07-13 · 8 related posts

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