Model comparison

Granite 4.2 8B vs Magistral Small

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 0 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.2 8B IBM

40.5

Rank #148 Confirmed

Magistral Small

Mistral AI

30.2

Rank #296 Confirmed

Summary

The widest gap is in reasoning, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 26.6 to 6.8.
Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $1.50 for Magistral Small.
Granite 4.2 8B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 128K.

Side by side

Granite 4.2 8B and Magistral Small specifications
	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Small
Provider	IBM	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	40.5	30.2
Released	—	2025-06-10
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	128K
Max output	118K	40K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.06	$0.50
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	$1.50
Results tracked	11	10

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137), Magistral Small: 38.4 (#176)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Small
SciCode	—	35.2%
LMArena Coding	1380	—

Reasoning Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131), Magistral Small: 6.8 (#350)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Small
ARC-AGI-2	—	0%
Kagi LLM Benchmark	—	6.3%
ARC-AGI-1	—	5%
CritPt	—	0.3%
Chess Puzzles	—	3%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1329	—
DTBench	—	61.3%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	133.19

Math Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Magistral Small: 26.2 (#261)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Small
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	30%

Knowledge Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145), Magistral Small: 30.9 (#223)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Small
GPQA Diamond	—	56.1%
LMArena Expert	1384	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178), Magistral Small: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Small
LMArena Non-English	1302	—
LMArena Chinese	1366	—
LMArena Russian	1285	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184), Magistral Small: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Small
LMArena Instruction Following	1301	—

Long Context Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159), Magistral Small: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Small
LMArena Longer Query	1324	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189), Magistral Small: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Magistral Small
LMArena Text	1320	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1236	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1301	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Magistral Small?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index.

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

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Magistral Small lists at $0.50 and $1.50.

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

Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.5 versus 38.4 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 Magistral Small share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Magistral Small has 10.