# Granite 4.2 8B vs Beam

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

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-reflection-beam
- Last updated: October 5, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 7
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.8

## Quick Verdict

Granite 4.2 8B leads by point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence. Choose using the category evidence and your own workload tests.

## Summary

- Granite 4.2 8B has the higher overall point estimate 31.82 to 0. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench 2.1 in Agentic, with scores of 20.6% and 80.1%.
- Beam is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.
- Granite 4.2 8B also has the larger context window at 128K.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Granite 4.2 8B | Beam |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | IBM | Reflection AI |
| Type | Open Weight | Pending |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 128K | null |
| Overall Score | 31.82 | null |
| Benchmarks Covered | 14 | 16 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.00 / $0.00 | Pricing unavailable / Pricing unavailable |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 14 (Estimated · #106/119)
- Beam public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Beam | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 20.6% | 80.1% | Beam |
| τ³-bench results | 58.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BFCL v4 | 52.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | Coming soon | 78.7% | Coming soon |
| BrowseComp | Coming soon | 77.4% | Coming soon |
| DeepSearchQA | Coming soon | 80.1% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 18.1 (Estimated · #124/144)
- Beam public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Beam | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 47.7% | 80.9% | Beam |
| SWE-bench Pro | 19.1% | 65.5% | Beam |
| SWE Multilingual | 30.8% | 78% | Beam |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 20.6% | 80.1% | Beam |
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 73.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SciCode | 36.1% | 49.7% | Beam |
| DeepSWE | Coming soon | 44.4% | Coming soon |
| SWE-Atlas Codebase QnA | Coming soon | 34.6% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 53.2 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Beam public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Beam | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| LongBench v2 | Coming soon | 65.5% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 28.8 (Supported · #141/171)
- Beam public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Beam | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 64.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro | 74.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA-D | Coming soon | 90.5% | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | Coming soon | 36.2% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 82.1 (#50/125)
- Beam public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Beam | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 79.3% | 79.7% | Beam |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Beam public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Beam | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME 2025 | 86.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2025 | 78.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| AIME26 | Coming soon | 97.8% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

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

Granite 4.2 8B has the higher overall point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.

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

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

### How many benchmarks does Beam cover on BenchLM?

Beam currently has 16 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Granite 4.2 8B vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-granite-4-2-8b)
- [Beam vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-reflection-beam)
- [Granite 4.2 8B vs Granite 4.2 3B](/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-granite-4-2-8b)
- [Beam vs Granite 4.2 3B](/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-reflection-beam)

## Explore More

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