# Granite 4.2 30B vs Granite 4.2 8B

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Granite 4.2 30B and Granite 4.2 8B across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-granite-4-2-8b
- Last updated: September 10, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 14
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Pick Granite 4.2 30B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Granite 4.2 8B only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Granite 4.2 30B leads overall 50 to 38.51.
- The clearest category separation is in reasoning, where the averages are 54.7 for Granite 4.2 30B and 51.9 for Granite 4.2 8B.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is SWE-bench Pro in Coding, with scores of 33.3% and 19.1%.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Granite 4.2 30B | Granite 4.2 8B |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | IBM | IBM |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 128K | 128K |
| Overall Score | null | 38.51 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 14 | 14 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.00 / $0.00 | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 30B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 31.8 (Estimated · #138/152)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30B | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 29.2% | 20.6% | Granite 4.2 30B |
| τ³-bench results | 62.0% | 58.1% | Granite 4.2 30B |
| BFCL v4 | 61.4% | 52.4% | Granite 4.2 30B |

### Coding

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 30B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 37.2 (Estimated · #125/151)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30B | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE Multilingual | 41.9% | 30.8% | Granite 4.2 30B |
| SWE-bench Pro | 33.3% | 19.1% | Granite 4.2 30B |
| SWE-bench Verified | 57% | 47.7% | Granite 4.2 30B |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 29.2% | 20.6% | Granite 4.2 30B |
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 75.8% | 73.2% | Granite 4.2 30B |
| SciCode | 38.8% | 36.1% | Granite 4.2 30B |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 30B public-lane score: 54.7 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 51.9 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

### Knowledge

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 30B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 34.7 (Supported · #161/183)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30B | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 66.4% | 64.1% | Granite 4.2 30B |
| MMLU-Pro | 77.6% | 74.0% | Granite 4.2 30B |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 30B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 84.4 (#46/123)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30B | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 77.2% | 79.3% | Granite 4.2 8B |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 30B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30B | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME 2025 | 89.2% | 86.7% | Granite 4.2 30B |
| HMMT Feb 2025 | 89.2% | 78.3% | Granite 4.2 30B |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Granite 4.2 30B or Granite 4.2 8B?

Granite 4.2 30B is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Granite 4.2 30B and Granite 4.2 8B?

The widest category gap is in reasoning, where the averages are 54.7 for Granite 4.2 30B and 51.9 for Granite 4.2 8B.

### How many benchmarks does Granite 4.2 30B cover on BenchLM?

Granite 4.2 30B currently has 14 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Granite 4.2 8B cover on BenchLM?

Granite 4.2 8B currently has 14 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Granite 4.2 30B vs Granite 4.2 3B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-granite-4-2-3b)
- [Granite 4.2 8B vs Granite 4.2 3B](/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-granite-4-2-8b)
- [Granite 4.2 30B vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-granite-4-2-30b)
- [Granite 4.2 8B vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-granite-4-2-8b)

## Explore More

- [Granite 4.2 30B profile](/models/granite-4-2-30b)
- [Granite 4.2 8B profile](/models/granite-4-2-8b)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)