Model comparison

Granite 4.2 8B vs Magistral Medium

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 35.2 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 11 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.2 8B IBM

40.5

Rank #148 Confirmed

Magistral Medium

Mistral AI

35.2

Rank #227 Confirmed

Summary

They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 8B scores higher in 7 categories and Magistral Medium in 0 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in reasoning, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 26.6 to 8.6.
Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $5 for Magistral Medium.
Magistral Medium accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

Granite 4.2 8B and Magistral Medium specifications
	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Medium
Provider	IBM	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	40.5	35.2
Released	—	2025-03-17
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	262K
Max output	118K	16K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.06	$2
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	$5
Results tracked	11	22

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Category by category

Coding Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137), Magistral Medium: 39.1 (#161)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Medium
LMArena Coding	1380	1319
SciCode	—	39.2%

Reasoning Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131), Magistral Medium: 8.6 (#348)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Medium
LMArena Hard Prompts	1329	1267
ARC-AGI-2	—	0%
Kagi LLM Benchmark	—	16.2%
ARC-AGI-1	—	6.1%
CritPt	—	0.3%

Math Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Magistral Medium: 35.1 (#189)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Medium
LMArena Math	—	1250

Knowledge Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145), Magistral Medium: 33.5 (#202)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Medium
LMArena Expert	1384	1223

Multilingual Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178), Magistral Medium: 39.6 (#224)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Medium
LMArena Non-English	1302	1232
LMArena Chinese	1366	1227
LMArena Russian	1285	1224
LMArena French	—	1267
LMArena German	—	1248
LMArena Japanese	—	1175
LMArena Korean	—	1125
LMArena Spanish	—	1271

Instruction Following Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184), Magistral Medium: 66.0 (#211)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Medium
LMArena Instruction Following	1301	1254

Long Context Too close to call

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159), Magistral Medium: 39.3 (#183)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Medium
LMArena Longer Query	1324	1295

Writing & Preference Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189), Magistral Medium: 46.3 (#219)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Medium
LMArena Text	1320	1255
LMArena Creative Writing	1236	1245
LMArena Multi-Turn	1301	1275

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Magistral Medium?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 35.2 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Magistral Medium?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Magistral Medium lists at $2 and $5.

Is Granite 4.2 8B or Magistral Medium better for coding?

Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.5 versus 39.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Magistral Medium does, with 262K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Magistral Medium share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Magistral Medium has 22.