Model comparison

Granite 4.2 8B vs Mistral Large 3

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 38.6 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 11 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.2 8B IBM

40.0

Rank #143 Confirmed

Mistral Large 3

Mistral AI

38.6

Rank #172 Confirmed

Summary

They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 8B scores higher in 3 categories and Mistral Large 3 in 4 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in reasoning, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 25.5 to 14.6.
Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $0.75 for Mistral Large 3.
Mistral Large 3 accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

Granite 4.2 8B and Mistral Large 3 specifications
	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Large 3
Provider	IBM	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	40.0	38.6
Released	—	2025-12-02
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	262K
Max output	118K	8K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.06	$0.25
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	$0.75
Results tracked	11	24

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Category by category

Coding Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 39.9 (#138), Mistral Large 3: 34.1 (#230)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Large 3
LMArena Coding	1379	1447
LMArena WebDev	—	1230

Reasoning Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 25.5 (#130), Mistral Large 3: 14.6 (#314)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Large 3
LMArena Hard Prompts	1327	1429
Kagi LLM Benchmark	—	50.9%
NYT Connections (extended)	—	7.5%
Thematic Generalization	—	23%

Math Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Mistral Large 3: 36.0 (#131)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Large 3
LMArena Math	—	1415

Knowledge Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 37.7 (#144), Mistral Large 3: 35.5 (#173)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Large 3
LMArena Expert	1380	1421
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	14.5%

Multimodal Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Mistral Large 3: 37.6 (#65)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Large 3
LMArena Vision	—	1222

Multilingual Mistral Large 3 leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#173), Mistral Large 3: 52.6 (#79)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Large 3
LMArena Non-English	1299	1412
LMArena Chinese	1361	1448
LMArena Russian	1283	1412
LMArena French	—	1456
LMArena German	—	1438
LMArena Japanese	—	1399
LMArena Korean	—	1384
LMArena Spanish	—	1437

Instruction Following Mistral Large 3 leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#183), Mistral Large 3: 74.1 (#104)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Large 3
LMArena Instruction Following	1298	1402

Long Context Mistral Large 3 leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.2 (#154), Mistral Large 3: 43.1 (#102)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Large 3
LMArena Longer Query	1323	1413

Writing & Preference Mistral Large 3 leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 49.8 (#183), Mistral Large 3: 60.2 (#100)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Large 3
LMArena Text	1319	1427
LMArena Creative Writing	1238	1385
LMArena Multi-Turn	1299	1429
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	—	1412

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Mistral Large 3?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 38.6 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Mistral Large 3?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Mistral Large 3 lists at $0.25 and $0.75.

Is Granite 4.2 8B or Mistral Large 3 better for coding?

Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.9 versus 34.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Large 3 does, with 262K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Mistral Large 3 share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Large 3 has 24.