Granite 4.2 8B vs Mercury 2.5
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 8B by IBM or Mercury 2.5 by Inception? 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
Mercury 2.5 scores 1.2 points higher (12.3 vs 11.1) but costs 4.1× as much to run the benchmark ($218 vs $53.1; both mid-range class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Mercury 2.5 when you need intelligence above 11.1, and Granite 4.2 8B when 11.1 is enough.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 8B | Mercury 2.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.1 | 12.3 | +10.8% Mercury 2.5 is 10.8% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $53.07 | $218.11 | +311.0% Mercury 2.5 is 4.1× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 52.08s | 4.24s | −91.9% Mercury 2.5 is 91.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.06 / $0.25 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Mercury 2.5 vs Granite 4.2 8B: 10.8% more intelligence, 311.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 91.9% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Granite 4.2 8B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (High) scores 32.90 for $47.9.
- Mercury 2.5 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Granite 4.2 8BMercury 2.5Today'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-4-2-8b/mercury-2-5 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-8b/mercury-2-5?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill