# Granite 4.2 8B vs Grok 2 mini

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Granite 4.2 8B and Grok 2 mini across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-grok-2-mini
- Last updated: October 14, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 2
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.8

## Quick Verdict

Evidence is too thin for a benchmark verdict: Granite 4.2 8B and Grok 2 mini share only 2 sourced benchmark rows.

## Summary

- Only 2 shared sourced benchmark rows are available. That is not enough for a broad capability verdict, so this mirror does not name an overall winner.
- Granite 4.2 8B has the larger published context window at 128K.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Granite 4.2 8B | Grok 2 mini |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | IBM | xAI |
| Type | Open Weight | Proprietary |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Non-Reasoning |
| Context | 128K | Unknown |
| Independent public score (not head-to-head) | 33.57 | null |
| Benchmarks Covered | 14 | 5 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.00 / $0.00 | N/A |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 16.2 (Estimated · #111/124)
- Grok 2 mini public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Grok 2 mini | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 20.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| τ³-bench results | 58.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BFCL v4 | 52.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 17.3 (Estimated · #123/148)
- Grok 2 mini public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Grok 2 mini | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 47.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Pro | 19.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE Multilingual | 30.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 20.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 73.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SciCode | 36.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HumanEval | Coming soon | 85.7% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 56.8 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Grok 2 mini public-lane score: Coming soon

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Grok 2 mini public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Grok 2 mini | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMMU | Coming soon | 63.2% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 30.7 (Supported · #150/181)
- Grok 2 mini public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Grok 2 mini | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 64.1% | 51% | Granite 4.2 8B |
| MMLU-Pro | 74.0% | 72% | Granite 4.2 8B |
| MMLU | Coming soon | 86.2% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 86.5 (#41/128)
- Grok 2 mini public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Grok 2 mini | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 79.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Grok 2 mini public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Grok 2 mini | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME 2025 | 86.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2025 | 78.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Is there enough evidence to pick between Granite 4.2 8B and Grok 2 mini?

Not yet. The models share only 2 sourced benchmark rows, so this mirror reports the available measurements and metadata without naming a broad winner.

### What can I compare safely on this page?

Published pricing, context windows, model type, and individual shared benchmark rows are directly comparable. Independent overall scores and non-overlapping benchmark coverage are labeled separately and should not be read as a controlled head-to-head result.

## Related Comparisons

- [Granite 4.2 8B vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-granite-4-2-8b)
- [Grok 2 mini vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-grok-2-mini)
- [Granite 4.2 8B vs Granite 4.2 3B](/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-granite-4-2-8b)
- [Grok 2 mini vs Granite 4.2 3B](/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-grok-2-mini)

## Explore More

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