# Granite 4.2 8B vs Magistral Medium

> Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 34.8 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-magistral-medium
- 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 Magistral Medium in 0 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 25.5 to 8.7.
- Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $5 for Magistral Medium.
- Granite 4.2 8B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 128K.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.2 8B | Magistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 40.0 | 34.8 |
| Rank | 143 | 224 |
| Context | 131K | 128K |
| Input $/M | $0.06 | $2 |
| Output $/M | $0.25 | $5 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Granite 4.2 8B: 39.9 (#138)
- Magistral Medium: 38.6 (#161)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Magistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1379 | 1319 |
| SciCode | — | 39.2% |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.2 8B: 25.5 (#130)
- Magistral Medium: 8.7 (#342)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Magistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1327 | 1267 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 0% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 16.2% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 6.1% |
| CritPt | — | 0.3% |

## Math

- Granite 4.2 8B: —
- Magistral Medium: 32.4 (#187)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Magistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | — | 1249 |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.2 8B: 37.7 (#144)
- Magistral Medium: 32.9 (#199)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Magistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1380 | 1222 |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#173)
- Magistral Medium: 39.8 (#219)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Magistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1299 | 1232 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1361 | 1225 |
| LMArena Russian | 1283 | 1224 |
| LMArena French | — | 1268 |
| LMArena German | — | 1248 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1176 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1125 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1269 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#183)
- Magistral Medium: 66.2 (#207)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Magistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1298 | 1254 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.2 8B: 40.2 (#154)
- Magistral Medium: 39.3 (#178)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Magistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1323 | 1295 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.2 8B: 49.8 (#183)
- Magistral Medium: 46.5 (#214)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Magistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1319 | 1255 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1238 | 1245 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1299 | 1275 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Magistral Medium?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 34.8 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: 39.9 versus 38.6 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 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.