Granite 4.2 30B vs Muse Spark Open (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 30B by IBM or Muse Spark Open (Xhigh) 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 Open (Xhigh) scores 26.2 points higher (38.9 vs 12.7) but costs 11× as much to run the benchmark ($1185 vs $111; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Muse Spark Open (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 12.7, and Granite 4.2 30B when 12.7 is enough.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 30B | Muse Spark Open (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.7 | 38.9 | +206.3% Muse Spark Open (Xhig… is 3.1× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $110.83 | $1,184.90 | +969.1% Muse Spark Open (Xhig… is 11× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 51.51s | 17.34s | −66.3% Muse Spark Open (Xhig… is 66.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.16 / $0.65 | $1.25 / $4.25 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Muse Spark Open (Xhigh) vs Granite 4.2 30B: 206.3% more intelligence, 969.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 66.3% faster 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 Open (Xhigh) 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 Open (Xhigh)Today'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/granite-4-2-30b/muse-spark-open · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-30b/muse-spark-open?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill