Granite 4.2 8B vs Muse Ember (Max)
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 8B by IBM or Muse Ember (Max) by Meta? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-09.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Muse Ember (Max) scores 30.9 points higher (36.0 vs 5.1) but costs 2.5× as much to run the benchmark ($117 vs $46.9; mid-range vs budget cost classes). Pick Muse Ember (Max) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Granite 4.2 8B.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 8B | Muse Ember (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 5.1 | 36.0 | +605.9% Muse Ember (Max) is 7.1× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $46.88 | $117.12 | +149.8% Muse Ember (Max) is 2.5× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 18.78s | Not reported | — not comparable |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.06 / $0.25 | $0.10 / $0.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Muse Ember (Max) vs Granite 4.2 8B: 605.9% more intelligence, 149.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and end-to-end time not fully reported.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Granite 4.2 8B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Low) scores 18.60 for $39.6.
- Muse Ember (Max) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Granite 4.2 8BMuse Ember (Max)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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