Granite 4.2 3B vs Grok 4.7 (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 3B by IBM or Grok 4.7 (Xhigh) by SpaceXAI? 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
Grok 4.7 (Xhigh) scores 37.3 points higher (46.4 vs 9.1) but costs 333× as much to run the benchmark ($4967 vs $14.9; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Grok 4.7 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 9.1, and Granite 4.2 3B when 9.1 is enough.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 3B | Grok 4.7 (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.1 | 46.4 | +409.9% Grok 4.7 (Xhigh) is 5.1× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $14.91 | $4,967.35 | +33215.6% Grok 4.7 (Xhigh) is 333× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 49.42s | 40.07s | −18.9% Grok 4.7 (Xhigh) is 18.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.03 / $0.12 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Grok 4.7 (Xhigh) vs Granite 4.2 3B: 409.9% more intelligence, 33215.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 18.9% 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 4.7 (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Granite 4.2 3BGrok 4.7 (Xhigh)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-3b/grok-4-7 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-3b/grok-4-7?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill