Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) vs Granite 4.2 8B
Which is better for the money: Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) by Google or Granite 4.2 8B by IBM? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-03.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) scores 52.6 points higher (57.7 vs 5.1) but costs 126× as much to run the benchmark ($5903 vs $46.9; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) when you need intelligence above 5.1, and Granite 4.2 8B when 5.1 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) | Granite 4.2 8B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.7 | 5.1 | −91.2% Granite 4.2 8B is 91.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,903.03 | $46.88 | −99.2% Granite 4.2 8B is 99.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.62s | 41.94s | +260.9% Granite 4.2 8B is 260.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.06 / $0.25 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text |
Granite 4.2 8B vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium): 91.2% less intelligence, 99.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 260.9% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Granite 4.2 8B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Low) scores 18.60 for $39.6.
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)Granite 4.2 8BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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