Granite 4.2 3B vs Grok 4.6 (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 3B by IBM or Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) by SpaceXAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) scores 35.1 points higher (44.2 vs 9.1) but costs 150× as much to run the benchmark ($2242 vs $14.9; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 9.1, and Granite 4.2 3B when 9.1 is enough.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 3B | Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.1 | 44.2 | +385.7% Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) is 4.9× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $14.91 | $2,241.91 | +14936.3% Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) is 150× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 35.30s | 32.45s | −8.1% Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) is 8.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.03 / $0.12 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) vs Granite 4.2 3B: 385.7% more intelligence, 14936.3% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 8.1% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Granite 4.2 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Grok 4.6 (Xhigh) 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 3BGrok 4.6 (Xhigh)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-4-2-3b/grok-4-6-xhigh · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-3b/grok-4-6-xhigh?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill