Granite 4.2 30B vs Qwen3.8 Max
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 30B by IBM or Qwen3.8 Max 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 Max scores 27.5 points higher (40.2 vs 12.7) but costs 29× as much to run the benchmark ($3172 vs $111; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max when you need intelligence above 12.7, and Granite 4.2 30B when 12.7 is enough.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 30B | Qwen3.8 Max | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.7 | 40.2 | +216.5% Qwen3.8 Max is 3.2× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $110.83 | $3,172.37 | +2762.4% Qwen3.8 Max is 29× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 57.71s | 64.42s | +11.6% Qwen3.8 Max is 11.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.16 / $0.65 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 Max vs Granite 4.2 30B: 216.5% more intelligence, 2762.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 11.6% 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.
- Qwen3.8 Max is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Granite 4.2 30BQwen3.8 MaxToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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