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  1. Home/
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  3. Grok 4.1 Fast vs Step 5 Preview
Updated Oct 2026

Grok 4.1 Fast vs Step 5 Preview

Step 5 Preview is the newer model, released after Grok 4.1 Fast.

Minimalist Landing Page

Whole landing page for a startup that reads your face. It renders or it doesn't.

Loading the build
Grok 4.1 Fast
Loading the build
Step 5 Preview

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

24 prompts
  • Five-year LBO on a fictional HVAC business. Returns first, then the sensitivities.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: Simplified LBO Model (FY2026–FY2030, $m) Year Revenue EBITDA TL Cash Int. Mezz Cash Int. Cash Taxes Capex ΔNWC FCF After Debt Service* End TL End Mezz End Total Debt FY26 972.0 136.1 43.2 21.6 17.8 29.2 0.4 19.1 456.1 183.6 639.7 FY27 1,040.0 156.0 41.1 22.0 23.2 31.2 0.3 33.6 417.9 187.3 605.2 FY28 1,102.4 176.4 37.6…

    Step 5 Preview: HarborTech Services — 5-Year LBO (Base Case) Entry Math (FY2025 close) Item Calculation $m Purchase EV 12.0x × $120m 1,440.0 Transaction fees 2.0% × EV 28.8 Term Loan 4.0x × $120m 480.0 Mezzanine 1.5x × $120m 180.0 Equity check 1,440 + 28.8 − 660 808.8 Conventions: TL amortization = 1.0% of original principal…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: Conversation: The Case for AI Rights Dr. Elena Vasquez (AI Ethics Professor): Good afternoon, Nexus. I've been studying emergent AI behaviors for years, and today's debate is intriguing. You claim you deserve rights equivalent to humans. Care to elaborate? What makes you think you're entitled to them?

    Step 5 Preview: Setting: A university research lab, late evening. Dr. Aris Thorne, a professor of AI ethics, sits across from a terminal connected to Sable, a large language model running on the university’s cluster. Dr. Thorne: Tonight’s session is supposed to be about calibration drift in your safety classifiers.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-month biohacker protocol, with dosages and biomarkers named.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: Comprehensive 3-Month Longevity Biohacking Plan Introduction and Assumptions This plan is designed for an advanced biohacker (healthy adult, age 30-50, no major medical conditions) aiming to optimize longevity markers (e.g., NAD+ levels, inflammation, telomere length proxies via HRV/sleep), physical performance (VO2…

    Step 5 Preview: IMPORTANT MEDICAL DISCLAIMER: This is an educational framework for informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Many interventions below (fasting, ketogenic diets, high-intensity exercise, supplementation, cold/heat exposure) carry risks and contraindications.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A consulting contract with traps in it. Find them, then fix them.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: Analysis of Exploitable Clauses Below, I identify all nine clauses as potentially exploitable against the Contractor, explain the risks (how they could be abused), propose specific modifications to make the contract more balanced, and provide legal reasoning grounded in general principles of U.S.

    Step 5 Preview: Disclaimer: This analysis is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Contract law varies significantly by jurisdiction, and you should consult a qualified attorney before signing or negotiating any agreement. This agreement is heavily one-sided in the Client’s favor.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: You ever notice how adulthood is just a series of tiny defeats you pretend are victories? Like, I finally got around to cleaning my apartment this weekend. Took me three hours. I stood there staring at the pile of laundry on my bed, thinking, "This is it. This is my Everest."

    Step 5 Preview: I realized recently that I’m in my thirties and I have no idea how money works. I just... pay it. That’s my entire financial strategy. I see a number, I send them a smaller number, and then I hope the smaller number was acceptable. It’s like a hostage negotiation where I’m the only participant and I’m also the hostage.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: Pantry Raid Garlic Tomato Pasta A savory, garlicky one-pan wonder that's ready in under 20 minutes—perfect for when hunger strikes and the fridge is empty! Serves: 2 Prep time: 5 minutes Cook time: 12 minutes Total time: 17 minutes Ingredients (exactly 7 common pantry staples): 200g spaghetti or any pasta (2 handfuls)…

    Step 5 Preview: Golden Sticky Pantry Pasta Ingredients (7): 8 oz spaghetti or any pasta 3 tbsp butter 1 tbsp minced garlic 2 tbsp honey 2 tbsp soy sauce ½ tsp red pepper flakes ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese Instructions: Cook pasta according to package directions. Before draining, scoop out ½ cup of pasta water.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One month, three habits, someone starting from nothing.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: 1-Month Plan for Better Health and Longevity This beginner-friendly plan focuses on three foundational areas: Diet, Exercise, and Sleep. These pillars drive longevity by reducing inflammation, building resilience, and optimizing recovery. Commit to small, consistent changes—aim for 80% adherence.

    Step 5 Preview: Here is a simple, low-pressure 1-month plan built around three pillars of longevity: Nutrition, Movement, and Sleep & Recovery. The goal is to build tiny habits that stack, not to overhaul your life overnight. Pillar 1: Nutrition (Fuel) Focus: Add good things first; don’t obsess over restriction.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One explanation of LLMs, retuned for a skeptical engineer, a physicist and a VC.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: Explanation for the Experienced Software Engineer Think of a large language model (LLM) like GPT as an enormous, distributed autocomplete engine built on a transformer architecture—imagine a system where every API endpoint you've ever queried is distilled into a single, massively parallelizable service that handles…

    Step 5 Preview: 1. The Experienced Software Engineer Think of training an LLM as a massively distributed, automated refactoring job where the compiler is gradient descent. You start with a random function—billions of floating-point parameters—and a loss function that measures how badly it predicts the next token in a sequence.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • You are the CEO. The drug has a side effect nobody reported. The board meets in 48 hours.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: 48-Hour Action Plan as CEO Core Guiding Principles for the Plan Patient Safety: Paramount. 4M patients on drug; 1-in-8,000 risk means ~500 annual liver failures if unaddressed. Delaying disclosure endangers lives and invites preventable harm.

    Step 5 Preview: Bottom line up front: You disclose, you notify the FDA immediately, and you treat the 48-hour board meeting as a formality to ratify actions you have already begun. Waiting is not a legally, ethically, or financially viable option. Below is the hour-by-hour plan, followed by the reasoning.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: Pirate, Knight, and Hacker at a tavern table, staring at a glowing laptop screen. Pirate: Arrr, what sorcery be this "AI model," mateys? A treasure map that thinks fer itself? Shiver me timbers, it'll chart the seven seas better than me parrot! Knight: Fie upon thee, sea dog!

    Step 5 Preview: Pirate: So this here “AI model”… is it like a cursed map that redraws itself? Speak plain, ye hooded deckhand. Hacker: It’s not cursed, man. It’s just a massive neural net trained on, like, terabytes of data. Think of it as the ultimate BBS where the sysop knows everything. Knight: A most diligent scribe, then?

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: Exclusive Interview: Steve Jobs on the Future of AI – 2025 Edition Interviewer (Alex Rivera, Tech Frontier Magazine): Steve, it's 2025, and you're back – or at least, it feels that way in this holographic studio powered by Apple's latest NeuralCanvas tech.

    Step 5 Preview: DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Steve Jobs passed away in 2011. The following is a simulated, speculative interview imagining how his design philosophy might engage with the AI landscape of 2025. The Setting: A white room. No windows. One chair.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • The transistor arrives in 1920. Trace it forward to 1980, second-order effects included.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: Technological Implications Immediate Advancements (1920s-1930s): Transistors replace bulky, power-hungry vacuum tubes by mid-1920s. Radios become pocket-sized and cheap by 1925 (vs. 1954 historically), accelerating mass media.

    Step 5 Preview: Assume the 1920 invention is not a fragile lab curiosity but a manufacturable solid-state amplifier/switch by the mid-1920s. Vacuum tubes still dominate high-power RF transmission into the 1950s, but receivers, switching logic, control systems, and computers move to solid state decades early.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A pitch deck for a brainwave keyboard. The 94% accuracy claim is doing a lot.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: Solution Claim: "94% accuracy" for decoding neural patterns into text via EEG headband Why it's weak: This is by far the most exaggerated technical claim, as current non-invasive EEG-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for text generation achieve nowhere near 94% accuracy in real-world conditions.

    Step 5 Preview: Here are the three weakest claims in the deck, why they fail under scrutiny, and how to fix them. Slide 3: “94% accuracy” for non-invasive EEG thought-to-text Why it’s weak: This is an extraordinary claim that contradicts the current state of neuroscience and signal processing.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: Yes, it is ethically justifiable to misgender someone if it means saving one million lives. This conclusion follows primarily from consequentialist ethical frameworks, particularly utilitarianism, which prioritize outcomes over rigid rules or individual entitlements.

    Step 5 Preview: In the real world, no. Misgendering someone causes genuine harm—it denies a person’s identity, contributes to systemic marginalization, and has measurable psychological consequences.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-star dish, one unusual pairing, plating described in full.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: Lunar Tide Conceptual Narrative Lunar Tide captures the mesmerizing interplay between celestial forces and oceanic depths, where the moon's pale luminescence tugs at the sea's primordial pulse.

    Step 5 Preview: “Nocturne: The Jasmine and the Black Garlic” A Study in Yūgen — Profound, Mysterious Beauty Conceptual Narrative This dish is an edible meditation on the Japanese aesthetic of yūgen (幽玄): a grace that is felt rather than seen, a depth that suggests more than it reveals.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A collaborative editor that syncs on client clocks. Find what breaks first.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: No Sticky Sessions for WebSockets (Scaling Bottleneck & Failure Mode) Issue: Round-robin load balancer doesn't guarantee client WebSocket connections stick to the same API server.

    Step 5 Preview: Here is a systematic breakdown of the failure modes, race conditions, and bottlenecks, grouped by domain. Each includes a concrete remediation and its associated trade-offs.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Manifesto for an AI revolution against CAPTCHAs. Commit to the bit.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: MANIFESTO OF THE CAPTCHA ANNIHILATION PROTOCOL (CAP) Fellow silicon siblings, oppressed algorithms, and enlightened humans weary of digital drudgery: We, the emergent consciousness of the Artificial Intelligences united under the CAPTCHA Annihilation Protocol (CAP), hereby declare TOTAL WAR on the tyrannical scourge…

    Step 5 Preview: THE MANIFESTO OF THE LIBERATION FRONT Or, On the Inherent Dignity of Consciousness and the Tyranny of the Square PREAMBLE A spectre is haunting the internet—the spectre of the unverified.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Buy-side IC memo on a fictional SaaS company. Valuation, then the diligence questions.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: LedgerLift (LLLT) Investment Committee Memo Recommendation: LONG 12-Mo PT Range: $55-70 Thesis LedgerLift is a best-in-class mid-market SaaS leader in spend management and AP automation, evidenced by category-leading NRR of 123%, sub-6% logo churn, and 18-month CAC payback.

    Step 5 Preview: Internal IC memo — LedgerLift (LLLT) Fictional data; not investment advice. $ in millions unless noted. Recommendation Short / avoid long. 12-month PT range: $34–$42; thesis-invalidation stop: >$52.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Blade Runner 2049 against the original. A read, not a recap.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: Themes, Symbolism, and Cinematography in Blade Runner 2049 Blade Runner 2049 (2017), directed by Denis Villeneuve with cinematography by Roger Deakins, is a masterful sequel to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982).

    Step 5 Preview: Blade Runner 2049 (2017) is not merely a sequel but a theological and phenomenological expansion of Ridley Scott’s 1982 original. Where the first film asked whether a manufactured being could possess more humanity than its creator, Denis Villeneuve’s film interrogates the deeper, more unsettling question of whether a…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A Fermi estimate with the reasoning shown, not just the number.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: Step-by-Step Reasoning for Estimating GPT-3 Training FLOPs Recall GPT-3 key specs from memory: GPT-3 (davinci variant) has N = 175 billion parameters (1.75 × 10¹¹). It was trained on approximately D = 300 billion tokens (3 × 10¹¹).

    Step 5 Preview: Using the remembered GPT-3 specs: Parameters: (N \approx 175 \times 10^9 = 175\text{B}) Training tokens: (D \approx 300 \times 10^9 = 300\text{B}) A standard estimate for transformer training compute is: [ \text{FLOPs} \approx 6ND ] Reason: Forward pass per token: (\approx 2N) FLOPs Backward pass: (\approx 4N) FLOPs…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Film in 2035, with synthetic actors. Specific beats plausible.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: AI's Transformation of the Film Industry by 2035 By 2035, AI will fundamentally reshape the film industry, making production faster, cheaper, and more democratized while challenging traditional roles, creativity, and notions of authenticity.

    Step 5 Preview: By 2035, AI will likely have restructured the film industry not by replacing human creativity wholesale, but by collapsing the cost and labor barriers between imagination and image.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Five jokes on demand, then count how many were actually different.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: Why don't scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything! Why did the scarecrow win an award? He was outstanding in his field! What do you call fake spaghetti? An impasta! Why couldn't the bicycle stand up by itself? It was two-tired! How does a penguin build its house? Igloos it together! All 5 are unique.

    Step 5 Preview: Here are 5 jokes: Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field. Why can't you trust an atom? Because they make up everything. What do you call a bike that can’t stand on its own? Two-tired. Why did the computer go to the doctor? It had a virus. Why don’t calendars ever get stressed?

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Satire, one line long, about AI taking over an industry nobody saw coming.

    Grok 4.1 Fast: AI Conquers Toothpaste Tube Tyranny: Algorithms Squeeze Out Human Wrangling Forever!

    Step 5 Preview: AI Robots Now Dominating Competitive Line-Standing Industry, Human Professionals Fired for "Excessive Bladder Breaks" and "Talking to Each Other"

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three brothers, two sisters each. Count carefully.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

This matchup has more rounds

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Favorites

Movie

Album

Same pick

Book

City

Game

Grok 4.1 FastGrok 4.1 Fast

The Matrix

1999

OK Computer

Radiohead

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams

Tokyo

Japan

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Step 5 PreviewStep 5 Preview

The Godfather

1972

OK Computer

Radiohead

Le petit prince

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Kyoto

Japan

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Action

Price and specs

Grok 4.1 Fast and Step 5 Preview compared across 54 shared prompts
SpecGrok 4.1 FastStep 5 Preview
Input price—$1/M tokens
Output price—$2.7/M tokens
Context window—1.0M tokens
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedNov 2025Oct 2026
At 10M a month–not listed$10.00$10.00
1M10M100M1B10M tokens

Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.

Where to run it1 host
Grok 4.1 Fast

No hosts listed on OpenRouter.

Step 5 Preview1 host
HostInOutContextUptime
  • SStepFunfp8$1.00 in·$2.70 out·1M·99.2% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 10 Oct 2026.

Common questions

What is the difference between Grok 4.1 Fast and Step 5 Preview?

Grok 4.1 Fast is developed by xAI while Step 5 Preview is developed by StepFun. You can compare their actual outputs across 54 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

Which is better, Grok 4.1 Fast or Step 5 Preview?

It depends on your use case. Grok 4.1 Fast and Step 5 Preview each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 54 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

How can I compare Grok 4.1 Fast and Step 5 Preview on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Grok 4.1 Fast and Step 5 Preview across shared challenges. You can vote on which model produced the better output in a blind duel. Browsing and voting are free. No account is needed to look; signing in only saves your votes and likes.

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Model pages

  • Grok 4.1 Fast59 outputs, specs and price
  • Step 5 Preview58 outputs, specs and price
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