Claude Opus 5 (High) vs Granite 4.2 3B
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (High) by Anthropic or Granite 4.2 3B by IBM? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (High) scores 39.0 points higher (48.1 vs 9.1) but costs 291× as much to run the benchmark ($4332 vs $14.9; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (High) when you need intelligence above 9.1, and Granite 4.2 3B when 9.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (High) | Granite 4.2 3B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 48.1 | 9.1 | −81.1% Granite 4.2 3B is 81.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,331.68 | $14.91 | −99.7% Granite 4.2 3B is 99.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 24.66s | 49.98s | +102.7% Granite 4.2 3B is 102.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.03 / $0.12 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Granite 4.2 3B vs Claude Opus 5 (High): 81.1% less intelligence, 99.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 102.7% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Granite 4.2 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Claude Opus 5 (High)Granite 4.2 3BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-high/granite-4-2-3b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-high/granite-4-2-3b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill