Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Granite 4.2 8B

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.2 8B costs 74× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 5.5 Anthropic

68.6

Rank #3 Confirmed

Granite 4.2 8B IBM

40.5

Rank #148 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher in 7 categories and Granite 4.2 8B in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Opus 5.5 leads 80.2 to 26.6.
  • Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $4 / $20 for Claude Opus 5.5.
  • Claude Opus 5.5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
  • Granite 4.2 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 8B
ProviderAnthropicIBM
Noometry Index68.640.5
Released2026-09-22—
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M131K
Max output128K118K
Input $ / M tokens$4$0.06
Output $ / M tokens$20$0.25
Results tracked4411

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Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 71.9 (#3), Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Coding15471380
FrontierCode54.6%—
CursorBench57.8%—
LMArena WebDev1813—
FrontierSWE62.3%—
SciCode66.9%—
MirrorCode77.4%—
ALE-Bench2,147—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 45.3 (#15), Granite 4.2 8B: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 8B
APEX-Agents73.5%—
GDP.pdf30.6%—
Vending-Bench 29,235—

Reasoning Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 80.2 (#3), Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Hard Prompts15351329
ARC-AGI-293.3%—
NYT Connections (extended)88.5%—
ARC-AGI-198.5%—
CritPt31.7%—
EBR-Bench71.4%—
Mystery Game Puzzles71%—
DTBench98.9%—
LMCA68.2%—
Epoch Capabilities Index167.33—

Math Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 91.8 (#3), Granite 4.2 8B: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 8B
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)91.2%—
FrontierMath Tier 495%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025100%—
ProofBench100%—
LMArena Math1506—
FrontierMath Erdős2.9%—

Knowledge Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 66.4 (#10), Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Expert15471384
GPQA Diamond90.6%—
SimpleQA Verified72.2%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 57.8 (#1), Granite 4.2 8B: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Vision1321—
Blueprint-Bench 251.2%—
Furniture Assembly83.3%—

Multilingual Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 59.1 (#2), Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Non-English15071302
LMArena Chinese15881366
LMArena Russian15201285
LMArena French1514—
LMArena Spanish1507—

Instruction Following Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 80.0 (#3), Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Instruction Following15371301

Long Context Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 47.1 (#19), Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Longer Query15321324

Writing & Preference Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 78.2 (#3), Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Text15151320
LMArena Creative Writing15331236
LMArena Multi-Turn14991301
EQ-Bench Creative Writing2050—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 5.5 better than Granite 4.2 8B?

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.2 8B costs 74× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 5.5 or Granite 4.2 8B?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 5.5 lists at $4 and $20.

Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Granite 4.2 8B better for coding?

Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 71.9 versus 40.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Opus 5.5 does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 5.5 and Granite 4.2 8B share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 5.5 has 44 scored results on Noometry and Granite 4.2 8B has 11.

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