Model comparison
Granite 4.2 8B vs Llama 3.1-8B
Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 22.8 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.1-8B costs 1.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Granite 4.2 8B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.
MetaSummary
- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 8B scores higher in 7 categories and Llama 3.1-8B in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 37.7 to 8.0.
- Llama 3.1-8B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.06 / $0.25 for Granite 4.2 8B.
- Granite 4.2 8B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Meta |
| Noometry Index | 40.0 | 22.8 |
| Released | — | 2024-07-23 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 131K | 128K |
| Max output | 118K | 4K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.06 | $0.05 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.25 | $0.08 |
| Results tracked | 11 | 43 |
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Category by category
Coding Granite 4.2 8B leads
Granite 4.2 8B: 39.9 (#138), Llama 3.1-8B: 19.9 (#335)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1379 | 1195 |
| SciCode | — | 13.2% |
| WeirdML | — | 1.7% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 32.8% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 40.5% |
| HumanEval+ | — | 62.8% |
| MBPP+ | — | 55.6% |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Granite 4.2 8B: —, Llama 3.1-8B: 22.3 (#123)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 25.8% |
| BALROG | — | 15.1% |
Reasoning Granite 4.2 8B leads
Granite 4.2 8B: 25.5 (#130), Llama 3.1-8B: 14.5 (#316)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1327 | 1175 |
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
| DTBench | — | 50.9% |
| LMCA | — | 5.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 116.48 |
| PIQA | — | 81.2% |
Math Not comparable
Granite 4.2 8B: —, Llama 3.1-8B: 9.5 (#311)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 1.7% |
| Omni-MATH | — | 13.7% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1179 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 22.9% |
| GSM8K | — | 82.4% |
Knowledge Granite 4.2 8B leads
Granite 4.2 8B: 37.7 (#144), Llama 3.1-8B: 8.0 (#302)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1380 | 1144 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 27% |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 40.6% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 24.7% |
| BoolQ | — | 82.8% |
| MMLU | — | 56.1% |
Multilingual Granite 4.2 8B leads
Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#173), Llama 3.1-8B: 34.2 (#244)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1299 | 1148 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1361 | 1151 |
| LMArena Russian | 1283 | 1158 |
| LMArena French | — | 1176 |
| LMArena German | — | 1144 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1061 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1053 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1169 |
Instruction Following Granite 4.2 8B leads
Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#183), Llama 3.1-8B: 59.1 (#253)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1298 | 1159 |
| IFEval | — | 74.3% |
Long Context Granite 4.2 8B leads
Granite 4.2 8B: 40.2 (#154), Llama 3.1-8B: 35.8 (#233)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1323 | 1182 |
Writing & Preference Granite 4.2 8B leads
Granite 4.2 8B: 49.8 (#183), Llama 3.1-8B: 29.9 (#285)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1319 | 1187 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1238 | 1154 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1299 | 1172 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 713 |
| WildBench | — | 68.7% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Llama 3.1-8B?
Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 22.8 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.1-8B costs 1.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Granite 4.2 8B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Llama 3.1-8B?
Llama 3.1-8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Granite 4.2 8B lists at $0.06 and $0.25.
Is Granite 4.2 8B or Llama 3.1-8B better for coding?
Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.9 versus 19.9 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Granite 4.2 8B does, with 131K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Llama 3.1-8B share?
11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Llama 3.1-8B has 43.