Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 8B 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 4.5 points higher (15.6 vs 11.1) but costs 12× as much to run the benchmark ($661 vs $53.1; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 11.1, and Granite 4.2 8B when 11.1 is enough.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.1 | 15.6 | +40.5% Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Re… is 40.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $53.07 | $661.29 | +1146.1% Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Re… is 12× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 63.67s | 21.22s | −66.7% Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Re… is 66.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.06 / $0.25 | $0.40 / $3.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning) vs Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5% more intelligence, 1146.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 66.7% 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.
- 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 8BQwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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