Bottom Line from Theo, he calls Grok 4.5 an outstanding value default coding model — fast, cheap, capable on real engineering work, and a huge step up for xAI. It’s not quite dethroning the absolute latest “orchestration kings,” but for most practical coding/agent use cases it punches way above its price. He’s excited about xAI’s momentum and thinks they’re now a real threat to the top labs.
Theo strongly recommended if you do a lot of coding/agent work, especially inside Cursor right now while the doubled usage is active.
Theo used it heavily for auditing and hardening a real open-source cloud project. It found most issues, proposed fixes, created multiple clean PRs in one go, addressed review comments, and handled follow-ups (including screenshot-based edits) without getting confused — even with messy, long-context prompts.
Strong agentic/multi-step work where it handled complex, multi-target tasks (multiple PRs + questions + to-do lists) smoothly in single runs.
It was surprisingly good at 3D where it built his fish tank full 3D game environment (creatures, geometry, tank setup) in Three.js better than Fable or GPT-5.6 in his tests. Still imperfect, but a clear step ahead for game dev/3D modeling.
Summary of Another Detailed Review
Weaker in pure 3JS / simple web games and frontend 3D (competent but not exceptional).
Stronger in low-level/systems work (Linux driver), complex 3D modeling, multimodal iterative coding, and C++.
“Massive leap” compared to previous Grok models.
Excellent value Speed + capability + price. Entire extensive test suite cost only $7.78 via Grok Build.
Promising for real engineering and agentic tasks.
Overall Verdict from Reviewer
Grok 4.5 is a big step forward for xAI. It’s not the absolute best at every creative/3JS task, but it excels at practical, real-world engineering work (especially systems-level coding, hardware interaction, 3D modeling, and multimodal iteration). Combined with its speed and aggressive pricing, it’s one of the best value frontier models right now.Summary Rating (from transcript tone):
Strongly Positive — especially for developers who do serious coding, systems work, or need good multimodal + iterative performance. The Linux driver and 3D engine tests were the standout moments for him.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.