Granite 4.2 8B vs Mistral Small 3.2
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 8B by IBM or Mistral Small 3.2 by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Granite 4.2 8B
Mistral Small 3.2 vs Granite 4.2 8B: 36.9% less intelligence, 129.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 78.2% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 8B | Mistral Small 3.2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.1 | 7.0 | −36.9% Mistral Small 3.2 is 36.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $53.07 | $121.78 | +129.5% Mistral Small 3.2 is 2.3× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 52.08s | 11.35s | −78.2% Mistral Small 3.2 is 78.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.06 / $0.25 | $0.07 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
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.
- Mistral Small 3.2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
Granite 4.2 8BMistral Small 3.2Today'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/mistral-small-3-2 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-8b/mistral-small-3-2?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill