Noometry

Model comparison

Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Granite 4.2 8B

Gemini 3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.2 8B costs 14× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 3.6 Flash Google

54.1

Rank #33 Confirmed

Granite 4.2 8B IBM

40.5

Rank #148 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.6 Flash 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 Gemini 3.6 Flash leads 58.8 to 26.6.
  • Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.75 / $3.75 for Gemini 3.6 Flash.
  • Gemini 3.6 Flash accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 131K.
  • Granite 4.2 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemini 3.6 FlashGranite 4.2 8B
ProviderGoogleIBM
Noometry Index54.140.5
Released2026-07-21—
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M131K
Max output66K118K
Input $ / M tokens$0.75$0.06
Output $ / M tokens$3.75$0.25
Results tracked4611

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 50.0 (#48), Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGranite 4.2 8B
LMArena Coding14911380
DeepSWE46.7%—
FrontierCode34.4%—
LMArena WebDev1538—
SciCode52.7%—
WeirdML56.1%—
ALE-Bench715.52—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 32.3 (#65), Granite 4.2 8B: —

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGranite 4.2 8B
APEX-Agents46.9%—
GDP.pdf14%—

Reasoning Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 58.8 (#22), Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGranite 4.2 8B
LMArena Hard Prompts14851329
ARC-AGI-260.4%—
NYT Connections (extended)89%—
ARC-AGI-191.2%—
CritPt10.6%—
Chess Puzzles43%—
Mystery Game Puzzles30%—
DTBench95.5%—
LMCA44.9%—
Epoch Capabilities Index154.25—

Math Not comparable

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 57.3 (#40), Granite 4.2 8B: —

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGranite 4.2 8B
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)58.9%—
FrontierMath Tier 422%—
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions70.8%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202594.2%—
ProofBench36%—
LMArena Math1505—

Knowledge Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 67.8 (#8), Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGranite 4.2 8B
LMArena Expert14881384
GPQA Diamond94.1%—
SimpleQA Verified66.2%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 38.5 (#64), Granite 4.2 8B: —

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGranite 4.2 8B
LMArena Vision1298—
Blueprint-Bench 231.2%—
Furniture Assembly23.3%—
LMArena Document1456—

Multilingual Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 56.5 (#19), Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGranite 4.2 8B
LMArena Non-English14691302
LMArena Chinese15311366
LMArena Russian14871285
LMArena French1504—
LMArena German1478—
LMArena Japanese1476—
LMArena Korean1431—
LMArena Spanish1475—

Instruction Following Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 77.0 (#33), Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGranite 4.2 8B
LMArena Instruction Following14661301

Long Context Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 45.1 (#50), Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGranite 4.2 8B
LMArena Longer Query14741324

Writing & Preference Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 68.2 (#27), Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGranite 4.2 8B
LMArena Text14791320
LMArena Creative Writing14651236
LMArena Multi-Turn14811301
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1604—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 3.6 Flash better than Granite 4.2 8B?

Gemini 3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.2 8B costs 14× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.6 Flash 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; Gemini 3.6 Flash lists at $0.75 and $3.75.

Is Gemini 3.6 Flash or Granite 4.2 8B better for coding?

Gemini 3.6 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.0 versus 40.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3.6 Flash does, with 1.05M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.6 Flash and Granite 4.2 8B share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.6 Flash has 46 scored results on Noometry and Granite 4.2 8B has 11.

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