Model comparison

GPT-4.1 vs Granite 4.2 8B

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 35.9 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.

GPT-4.1 OpenAI

35.9

Rank #219 Confirmed

Granite 4.2 8B IBM

40.5

Rank #148 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-4.1 scores higher in 3 categories and Granite 4.2 8B in 4 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 26.6 to 11.7.
  • Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $8 for GPT-4.1.
  • GPT-4.1 accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 131K.
  • Granite 4.2 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-4.1 and Granite 4.2 8B specifications
GPT-4.1Granite 4.2 8B
ProviderOpenAIIBM
Noometry Index35.940.5
Released2025-04-14—
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M131K
Max output33K118K
Input $ / M tokens$2$0.06
Output $ / M tokens$8$0.25
Results tracked5211

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Category by category

Coding Granite 4.2 8B leads

GPT-4.1: 34.4 (#238), Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Coding13911380
SWE-bench Verified48.5%—
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)39.6%—
Aider Polyglot52.4%—
WeirdML39%—
CadEval42%—
ALE-Bench558.1—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

GPT-4.1: 34.7 (#43), Granite 4.2 8B: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1Granite 4.2 8B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard54%—

Reasoning Granite 4.2 8B leads

GPT-4.1: 11.7 (#339), Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Hard Prompts13841329
ARC-AGI-20.4%—
SimpleBench27%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark52.3%—
ARC-AGI-15.5%—
Chess Puzzles6%—
EnigmaEval2.2%—
DTBench68.3%—
LMCA25.6%—
Epoch Capabilities Index136.78—
ForecastBench61.5—

Math Not comparable

GPT-4.1: 22.3 (#280), Granite 4.2 8B: —

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1Granite 4.2 8B
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)6%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202538.3%—
Omni-MATH47.1%—
LMArena Math1370—
MATH Level 583%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)5.5%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)0%—

Knowledge Granite 4.2 8B leads

GPT-4.1: 37.1 (#160), Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Expert13641384
GPQA Diamond66.9%—
Humanity's Last Exam5.4%—
SimpleQA Verified31.1%—
MMLU-Pro81.1%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate5.6%—
GPQA (HELM)65.9%—

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-4.1: 38.2 (#67), Granite 4.2 8B: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Vision1211—
GeoBench72%—

Multilingual GPT-4.1 leads

GPT-4.1: 49.4 (#133), Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Non-English13701302
LMArena Chinese13821366
LMArena Russian13771285
LMArena French1382—
LMArena German1381—
LMArena Japanese1319—
LMArena Korean1339—
LMArena Spanish1376—

Instruction Following GPT-4.1 leads

GPT-4.1: 71.3 (#153), Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Instruction Following13671301
IFEval83.8%—

Long Context Too close to call

GPT-4.1: 40.0 (#163), Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Longer Query13851324
Fiction.LiveBench63.9%—

Writing & Preference GPT-4.1 leads

GPT-4.1: 57.6 (#125), Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Text13831320
LMArena Creative Writing13631236
LMArena Multi-Turn13981301
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1420—
WildBench85.4%—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-4.1 better than Granite 4.2 8B?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 35.9 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, GPT-4.1 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; GPT-4.1 lists at $2 and $8.

Is GPT-4.1 or Granite 4.2 8B better for coding?

Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.5 versus 34.4 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-4.1 does, with 1.05M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do GPT-4.1 and Granite 4.2 8B share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-4.1 has 52 scored results on Noometry and Granite 4.2 8B has 11.

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