Granite 4.2 8B vs Muse Ember (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 8B by IBM or Muse Ember (Xhigh) by Meta? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-10.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Muse Ember (Xhigh) scores 29.0 points higher (34.1 vs 5.1) but costs 2.0× as much to run the benchmark ($95.7 vs $46.9; mid-range vs budget cost classes). Pick Muse Ember (Xhigh) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Granite 4.2 8B.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 8B | Muse Ember (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 5.1 | 34.1 | +568.6% Muse Ember (Xhigh) is 6.7× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $46.88 | $95.73 | +104.2% Muse Ember (Xhigh) is 2.0× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 18.78s | 9.48s | −49.5% Muse Ember (Xhigh) is 49.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.06 / $0.25 | $0.10 / $0.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Muse Ember (Xhigh) vs Granite 4.2 8B: 568.6% more intelligence, 104.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 49.5% 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, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Low) scores 18.60 for $39.6.
- Muse Ember (Xhigh) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Granite 4.2 8BMuse Ember (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-4-2-8b/muse-ember-xhigh · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-8b/muse-ember-xhigh?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill