Granite 4.2 30B vs Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 30B by IBM or Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) scores 8.7 points higher (21.4 vs 12.7) but costs 10× as much to run the benchmark ($1145 vs $111; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 12.7, and Granite 4.2 30B when 12.7 is enough.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 30B | Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.7 | 21.4 | +68.5% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 68.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $110.83 | $1,145.36 | +933.4% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 10× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 65.19s | 111.40s | +70.9% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 70.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.16 / $0.65 | $0.60 / $3.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) vs Granite 4.2 30B: 68.5% more intelligence, 933.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 70.9% 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.
- Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Granite 4.2 30BQwen3.6 27B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-30b/qwen3-6-27b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-30b/qwen3-6-27b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill