GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) vs Granite 4.2 8B

Which is better for the money: GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) 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-6.1 Sol (Max)On the frontier

Intelligence: 51.80
Total cost: $1082

IBMGranite 4.2 8BOff the frontier

Intelligence: 11.10
Total cost: $53.1

Verdict

Depends on your budget

GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 40.7 points higher (51.8 vs 11.1) but costs 20× as much to run the benchmark ($1082 vs $53.1; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) when you need intelligence above 11.1, and Granite 4.2 8B when 11.1 is enough.

Metric	GPT-6.1 Sol (Max)	Granite 4.2 8B	Difference
Intelligence (higher is better)	51.8	11.1	−78.6% Granite 4.2 8B is 78.6% less intelligent
Total AA cost (lower is better)	$1,081.55	$53.07	−95.1% Granite 4.2 8B is 95.1% cheaper
End-to-end time (lower is better)	250.67s	52.08s	−79.2% Granite 4.2 8B is 79.2% faster
Price per 1M tokens (in / out)	$2.00 / $10.0	$0.06 / $0.25
Input modalities	Text, Image	Text

Granite 4.2 8B vs GPT-6.1 Sol (Max): 78.6% less intelligence, 95.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 79.2% faster end-to-end.

Open this matchup in the interactive picker GPT-6.1 Sol (Max): what beats it Granite 4.2 8B: what beats it

Today's Pareto frontier

Against the frontier

GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) 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, GPT-6 Luna (High) scores 32.90 for $47.9.

GPT-6.1 Sol (Max)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-6-1-sol/granite-4-2-8b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-6-1-sol/granite-4-2-8b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill