# Granite 4.2 8B vs MiniMax-M2.5

> Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 38.3 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-minimax-m2-5
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 11

## Summary

- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 8B scores higher in 2 categories and MiniMax-M2.5 in 5 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 26.6 to 17.5.
- Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $1.20 for MiniMax-M2.5.
- MiniMax-M2.5 accepts more context: 205K tokens versus 131K.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 40.5 | 38.3 |
| Rank | 148 | 188 |
| Context | 131K | 205K |
| Input $/M | $0.06 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $0.25 | $1.20 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 48.1 (#58)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1380 | 1381 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 75.8% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1387 |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | — | 68.3% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 618.17 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Granite 4.2 8B: —
- MiniMax-M2.5: 30.4 (#77)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 42.7% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | -23.16 |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 17.5 (#292)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1329 | 1372 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 4.9% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 55.2% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 16.8% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 63.7% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 146.68 |

## Math

- Granite 4.2 8B: —
- MiniMax-M2.5: 26.9 (#253)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| ProofBench | — | 4% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1378 |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 39.2 (#135)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1384 | 1379 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 9.1% |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 47.1 (#152)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1302 | 1338 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1366 | 1393 |
| LMArena Russian | 1285 | 1358 |
| LMArena French | — | 1362 |
| LMArena German | — | 1362 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1171 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1232 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1354 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 71.5 (#148)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1301 | 1353 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 37.5 (#216)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1324 | 1366 |
| CL-bench | — | 11.4% |
| CL-bench Life | — | 6.3% |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189)
- MiniMax-M2.5: 53.9 (#153)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniMax-M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1320 | 1359 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1236 | 1331 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1301 | 1364 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1361 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.2 8B better than MiniMax-M2.5?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 38.3 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or MiniMax-M2.5?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; MiniMax-M2.5 lists at $0.30 and $1.20.

### Is Granite 4.2 8B or MiniMax-M2.5 better for coding?

MiniMax-M2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.1 versus 40.5 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M2.5 does, with 205K tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and MiniMax-M2.5 share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M2.5 has 33.