# Granite 4.2 8B vs Llama 3.1-70B

> Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 29.6 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-llama-3-1-70b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 11

## Summary

- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 8B scores higher in 7 categories and Llama 3.1-70B in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 38.4 to 24.2.
- Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $0.40 for Llama 3.1-70B.
- Granite 4.2 8B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 128K.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-70B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Meta |
| Noometry Index | 40.5 | 29.6 |
| Rank | 148 | 308 |
| Context | 131K | 128K |
| Input $/M | $0.06 | $0.40 |
| Output $/M | $0.25 | $0.40 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137)
- Llama 3.1-70B: 30.3 (#296)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1380 | 1260 |
| WeirdML | — | 9% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 46.1% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 54.8% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Granite 4.2 8B: —
- Llama 3.1-70B: 25.1 (#112)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-70B |
|---|---|---|
| TheAgentCompany | — | 6.9% |
| BALROG | — | 27.9% |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131)
- Llama 3.1-70B: 21.6 (#220)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1329 | 1241 |
| DTBench | — | 60% |
| LMCA | — | 14.8% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 125.92 |

## Math

- Granite 4.2 8B: —
- Llama 3.1-70B: 13.5 (#304)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-70B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 3.6% |
| Omni-MATH | — | 21% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1252 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 36.7% |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145)
- Llama 3.1-70B: 24.2 (#269)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1384 | 1209 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 44.2% |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 65.3% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 42.6% |
| MMLU | — | 80.1% |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178)
- Llama 3.1-70B: 38.8 (#225)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1302 | 1219 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1366 | 1215 |
| LMArena Russian | 1285 | 1234 |
| LMArena French | — | 1261 |
| LMArena German | — | 1222 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1132 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1140 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1253 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184)
- Llama 3.1-70B: 65.3 (#223)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1301 | 1231 |
| IFEval | — | 82.1% |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159)
- Llama 3.1-70B: 37.6 (#214)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1324 | 1241 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189)
- Llama 3.1-70B: 35.4 (#267)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Llama 3.1-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1320 | 1261 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1236 | 1232 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1301 | 1256 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 784 |
| WildBench | — | 75.8% |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Llama 3.1-70B?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 29.6 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Llama 3.1-70B?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Llama 3.1-70B lists at $0.40 and $0.40.

### Is Granite 4.2 8B or Llama 3.1-70B better for coding?

Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.5 versus 30.3 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 3.1-70B share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Llama 3.1-70B has 35.