Granite 4.2 30B vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 30B by IBM or Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) 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
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) scores 14.9 points higher (27.6 vs 12.7) but costs 11× as much to run the benchmark ($1165 vs $111; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) when you need intelligence above 12.7, and Granite 4.2 30B when 12.7 is enough.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 30B | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.7 | 27.6 | +117.3% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 2.2× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $110.83 | $1,165.00 | +951.2% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 11× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 65.19s | 56.45s | −13.4% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 13.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.16 / $0.65 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) vs Granite 4.2 30B: 117.3% more intelligence, 951.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 13.4% 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.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Granite 4.2 30BQwen3.8 27B (Medium)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/qwen3-8-27b-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-30b/qwen3-8-27b-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill