Granite 4.2 30B vs Muse Spark 1.3 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 30B by IBM or Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) by Meta? 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
Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) scores 35.4 points higher (48.1 vs 12.7) but costs 18× as much to run the benchmark ($2000 vs $111; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) when you need intelligence above 12.7, and Granite 4.2 30B when 12.7 is enough.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 30B | Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.7 | 48.1 | +278.7% Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) is 3.8× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $110.83 | $2,000.35 | +1704.9% Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) is 18× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 54.96s | 67.10s | +22.1% Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) is 22.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.16 / $0.65 | $1.25 / $4.25 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) vs Granite 4.2 30B: 278.7% more intelligence, 1704.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 22.1% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Granite 4.2 30B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
- Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Granite 4.2 30BMuse Spark 1.3 (Max)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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