GPT-6 Luna (Max) vs Granite 4.2 3B

Which is better for the money: GPT-6 Luna (Max) by OpenAI or Granite 4.2 3B by IBM? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.

Trade-off

OpenAIGPT-6 Luna (Max)On the frontier

Intelligence: 38.10
Total cost: $122

IBMGranite 4.2 3BOn the open-weights frontier

Intelligence: 9.10
Total cost: $14.9

Verdict

Depends on your budget

GPT-6 Luna (Max) scores 29.0 points higher (38.1 vs 9.1) but costs 8.2× as much to run the benchmark ($122 vs $14.9; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-6 Luna (Max) when you need intelligence above 9.1, and Granite 4.2 3B when 9.1 is enough.

Metric	GPT-6 Luna (Max)	Granite 4.2 3B	Difference
Intelligence (higher is better)	38.1	9.1	−76.1% Granite 4.2 3B is 76.1% less intelligent
Total AA cost (lower is better)	$122.05	$14.91	−87.8% Granite 4.2 3B is 87.8% cheaper
End-to-end time (lower is better)	84.46s	55.67s	−34.1% Granite 4.2 3B is 34.1% faster
Price per 1M tokens (in / out)	$0.10 / $0.50	$0.03 / $0.12
Input modalities	Text, Image	Text

Granite 4.2 3B vs GPT-6 Luna (Max): 76.1% less intelligence, 87.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 34.1% faster end-to-end.

Open this matchup in the interactive picker GPT-6 Luna (Max): what beats it Granite 4.2 3B: what beats it

Today's Pareto frontier

Against the frontier

GPT-6 Luna (Max) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Granite 4.2 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.

GPT-6 Luna (Max)Granite 4.2 3BToday'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-luna/granite-4-2-3b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-6-luna/granite-4-2-3b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill