Granite 4.2 30B vs Qwen3.7 Max
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 30B by IBM or Qwen3.7 Max by Alibaba? 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
Qwen3.7 Max scores 16.8 points higher (29.5 vs 12.7) but costs 21× as much to run the benchmark ($2277 vs $111; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.7 Max when you need intelligence above 12.7, and Granite 4.2 30B when 12.7 is enough.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 30B | Qwen3.7 Max | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.7 | 29.5 | +132.3% Qwen3.7 Max is 2.3× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $110.83 | $2,277.12 | +1954.6% Qwen3.7 Max is 21× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 54.96s | 16.62s | −69.8% Qwen3.7 Max is 69.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.16 / $0.65 | $2.50 / $7.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Qwen3.7 Max vs Granite 4.2 30B: 132.3% more intelligence, 1954.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 69.8% 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.
- Qwen3.7 Max is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
Granite 4.2 30BQwen3.7 MaxToday'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/qwen3-7-max · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-30b/qwen3-7-max?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill