Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 3B by IBM or Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning) 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
Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning) scores 6.5 points higher (15.6 vs 9.1) but costs 44× as much to run the benchmark ($661 vs $14.9; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 9.1, and Granite 4.2 3B when 9.1 is enough.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 3B | Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.1 | 15.6 | +71.4% Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Re… is 71.4% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $14.91 | $661.29 | +4335.2% Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Re… is 44× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 63.70s | 21.37s | −66.5% Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Re… is 66.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.03 / $0.12 | $0.40 / $3.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning) vs Granite 4.2 3B: 71.4% more intelligence, 4335.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 66.5% 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.
- Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
Granite 4.2 3BQwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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