Quote · Nerd Snipe with Theo and Ben
5 different models dropped last week & the GPT-5.6 usage limits are brutal
Where this was said
Grok 4.5: The First Non-Big-Two Model Worth Using
At 26:36 · chapter starts 24:20
Theo's verdict on Grok 4.5 is the most positive he's ever given a non-frontier model: this is the first time he's used something outside the big two without feeling like he's lowering his standards. The specific capability that earns this praise is multi-instruction coherence — giving it three disparate tasks in a single message and having it execute all of them without getting lost or confused, something even GPT-5.5 struggled with. Ben confirms a similar experience with PR manipulation tasks. The model's speed on OpenRouter (102 TPS), price ($2 in/$6 out), and Grok Build's polished TUI all compound into a genuinely compelling package. Both hosts also connect this to the xAI-Cursor acquisition thesis: Cursor's world-class model research plus xAI's disciplined engineering is already bearing fruit, while Google's pseudo-acquisition of Windsurf got the brand but not the team.
OpenAI quietly overwrote the Codex desktop app with the ChatGPT app on update, buried the Codex interface multiple layers deep, and cluttered the UI with duplicate buttons and unexplained model labels. The result satisfies neither developers who loved Codex nor normies they're trying to reach.
