Model comparison

Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3.6 35B-A3B

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 37.6 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 0 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.2 8B IBM

40.5

Rank #148 Confirmed

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B

Alibaba (Qwen)

37.6

Rank #201 Confirmed

Summary

The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads 51.3 to 38.4.
Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $1.49 for Qwen3.6 35B-A3B.
Qwen3.6 35B-A3B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B specifications
	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
Provider	IBM	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	40.5	37.6
Released	—	2026-04-01
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	262K
Max output	118K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.06	$0.25
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	$1.49
Results tracked	11	14

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Category by category

Coding Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 37.2 (#196)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
SciCode	—	35.8%
WeirdML	—	34.5%
LMArena Coding	1380	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 22.1 (#134)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
Terminal-Bench	—	23%

Reasoning Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 28.0 (#109)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
NYT Connections (extended)	—	41.6%
CritPt	—	0.3%
Chess Puzzles	—	26%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1329	—
Mystery Game Puzzles	—	22%
DTBench	—	73.9%
LMCA	—	29.7%
Surface Evolver Bench	—	44.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	143.93

Math Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 38.9 (#121)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	—	20.4%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	86.7%

Knowledge Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 51.3 (#68)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
GPQA Diamond	—	84.8%
LMArena Expert	1384	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Non-English	1302	—
LMArena Chinese	1366	—
LMArena Russian	1285	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Instruction Following	1301	—

Long Context Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Longer Query	1324	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Text	1320	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1236	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1301	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 37.6 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 35B-A3B lists at $0.25 and $1.49.

Is Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3.6 35B-A3B better for coding?

Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.5 versus 37.2 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B does, with 262K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B has 14.