Model comparison

Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3.8 Max

Qwen3.8 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.8 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.2 8B costs 28× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.8 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 11 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.2 8B IBM

40.5

Rank #148 Confirmed

Qwen3.8 Max

Alibaba (Qwen)

56.8

Rank #22 Confirmed

Summary

They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 8B scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.8 Max in 7 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen3.8 Max leads 54.4 to 26.6.
Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Qwen3.8 Max.
Qwen3.8 Max accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
Granite 4.2 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen3.8 Max specifications
	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.8 Max
Provider	IBM	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	40.5	56.8
Released	—	2026-08-02
Weights	Open	Proprietary
Context window	131K	1M
Max output	118K	131K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.06	$2
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	$6
Results tracked	11	39

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.8 Max leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137), Qwen3.8 Max: 53.5 (#29)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Coding	1380	1502
DeepSWE	—	57.5%
LMArena WebDev	—	1674
FrontierSWE	—	17.8%
SciCode	—	53.2%

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Qwen3.8 Max: 45.4 (#14)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.8 Max
APEX-Agents	—	63.3%
τ²-bench Banking	—	55.1%
GDP.pdf	—	23.2%

Reasoning Qwen3.8 Max leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131), Qwen3.8 Max: 54.4 (#26)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Hard Prompts	1329	1496
NYT Connections (extended)	—	88.3%
CritPt	—	20%
Chess Puzzles	—	40%
Mystery Game Puzzles	—	38%
DTBench	—	92%
LMCA	—	46.2%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	156.41

Math Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Qwen3.8 Max: 73.2 (#20)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.8 Max
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	—	74.7%
FrontierMath Tier 4	—	46.3%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	100%
ProofBench	—	58%
LMArena Math	—	1499

Knowledge Qwen3.8 Max leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145), Qwen3.8 Max: 61.7 (#27)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Expert	1384	1507
GPQA Diamond	—	92.7%
SimpleQA Verified	—	47.3%

Multimodal Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Qwen3.8 Max: 37.2 (#75)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Vision	—	1314
Furniture Assembly	—	20%

Multilingual Qwen3.8 Max leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178), Qwen3.8 Max: 56.7 (#18)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Non-English	1302	1472
LMArena Chinese	1366	1538
LMArena Russian	1285	1481
LMArena French	—	1503
LMArena German	—	1483
LMArena Japanese	—	1467
LMArena Korean	—	1461
LMArena Spanish	—	1492

Instruction Following Qwen3.8 Max leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184), Qwen3.8 Max: 77.6 (#17)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Instruction Following	1301	1479

Long Context Qwen3.8 Max leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159), Qwen3.8 Max: 45.6 (#31)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Longer Query	1324	1489

Writing & Preference Qwen3.8 Max leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189), Qwen3.8 Max: 67.1 (#30)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Text	1320	1483
LMArena Creative Writing	1236	1479
LMArena Multi-Turn	1301	1489

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Qwen3.8 Max?

Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3.8 Max?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Qwen3.8 Max lists at $2 and $6.

Is Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3.8 Max better for coding?

Qwen3.8 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 53.5 versus 40.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.8 Max does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen3.8 Max share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.8 Max has 39.