Model comparison

Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen2.5 7B Instruct

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 28.6 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 0 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.2 8B IBM

40.0

Rank #143 Confirmed

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct

Alibaba (Qwen)

28.6

Rank #314 Confirmed

Summary

The widest gap is in knowledge, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 37.7 to 17.0.
Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.17 / $0.70 for Qwen2.5 7B Instruct.

Side by side

Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct specifications
	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
Provider	IBM	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	40.0	28.6
Released	—	2024-09
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	131K
Max output	118K	8K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.06	$0.17
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	$0.70
Results tracked	11	15

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Category by category

Coding Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 39.9 (#138), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 35.9 (#204)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
BigCodeBench Instruct	—	37.6%
LMArena Coding	1379	—
BigCodeBench Complete	—	46.1%

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 23.5 (#117)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
BALROG	—	7.8%

Reasoning Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 25.5 (#130), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 14.3 (#317)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
Chess Puzzles	—	0%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1327	—
DTBench	—	47.7%
LMCA	—	6.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	118.44

Math Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 11.8 (#300)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	2.5%
Omni-MATH	—	29.4%

Knowledge Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 37.7 (#144), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 17.0 (#281)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
GPQA Diamond	—	35.5%
MMLU-Pro	—	53.9%
GPQA (HELM)	—	34.1%
LMArena Expert	1380	—
MMLU	—	72.9%

Multilingual Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#173), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
LMArena Non-English	1299	—
LMArena Chinese	1361	—
LMArena Russian	1283	—

Instruction Following Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#183), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 63.4 (#226)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
IFEval	—	74.1%
LMArena Instruction Following	1298	—

Long Context Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.2 (#154), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
LMArena Longer Query	1323	—

Writing & Preference Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 49.8 (#183), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 48.8 (#194)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
LMArena Text	1319	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1238	—
WildBench	—	73.1%
LMArena Multi-Turn	1299	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Qwen2.5 7B Instruct?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 28.6 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen2.5 7B Instruct?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Qwen2.5 7B Instruct lists at $0.17 and $0.70.

Is Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen2.5 7B Instruct better for coding?

Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.9 versus 35.9 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 131K tokens.

How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct has 15.