GPT-5.5 (High) vs Granite 4.2 8B

Which is better for the money: GPT-5.5 (High) by OpenAI or Granite 4.2 8B by IBM? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.

Trade-off

OpenAIGPT-5.5 (High)Off the frontier

Intelligence: 37.00
Total cost: $3411

IBMGranite 4.2 8BOff the frontier

Intelligence: 11.10
Total cost: $53.1

Verdict

Depends on your budget

GPT-5.5 (High) scores 25.9 points higher (37.0 vs 11.1) but costs 64× as much to run the benchmark ($3411 vs $53.1; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.5 (High) when you need intelligence above 11.1, and Granite 4.2 8B when 11.1 is enough.

Metric	GPT-5.5 (High)	Granite 4.2 8B	Difference
Intelligence (higher is better)	37.0	11.1	−70.0% Granite 4.2 8B is 70.0% less intelligent
Total AA cost (lower is better)	$3,410.76	$53.07	−98.4% Granite 4.2 8B is 98.4% cheaper
End-to-end time (lower is better)	19.56s	46.99s	+140.2% Granite 4.2 8B is 140.2% slower
Price per 1M tokens (in / out)	$5.00 / $30.0	$0.06 / $0.25
Input modalities	Text, Image	Text

Granite 4.2 8B vs GPT-5.5 (High): 70.0% less intelligence, 98.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 140.2% slower end-to-end.

Open this matchup in the interactive picker GPT-5.5 (High): what beats it Granite 4.2 8B: what beats it

Today's Pareto frontier

Against the frontier

GPT-5.5 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Granite 4.2 8B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (High) scores 32.90 for $47.9.

GPT-5.5 (High)Granite 4.2 8BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model

Matchup

Compare something else

Agents: Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-5-high/granite-4-2-8b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-5-high/granite-4-2-8b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill