# Granite 4.2 8B vs Nova Premier 1.0

> Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 37.7 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-nova-premier-1-0
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 0

## Summary

- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 25.5 to 22.3.
- Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $2.50 / $12.50 for Nova Premier 1.0.
- Nova Premier 1.0 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Granite 4.2 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.2 8B | Nova Premier 1.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 40.0 | 37.7 |
| Rank | 143 | 185 |
| Context | 131K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.06 | $2.50 |
| Output $/M | $0.25 | $12.50 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Granite 4.2 8B: 39.9 (#138)
- Nova Premier 1.0: —

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Nova Premier 1.0 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1379 | — |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.2 8B: 25.5 (#130)
- Nova Premier 1.0: 22.3 (#182)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Nova Premier 1.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 44.8% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1327 | — |

## Math

- Granite 4.2 8B: —
- Nova Premier 1.0: 31.5 (#194)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Nova Premier 1.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Omni-MATH | — | 35% |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.2 8B: 37.7 (#144)
- Nova Premier 1.0: 35.4 (#176)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Nova Premier 1.0 |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | — | 72.6% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 51.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1380 | — |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#173)
- Nova Premier 1.0: —

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Nova Premier 1.0 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1299 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1361 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1283 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#183)
- Nova Premier 1.0: 66.9 (#201)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Nova Premier 1.0 |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | — | 80.3% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1298 | — |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.2 8B: 40.2 (#154)
- Nova Premier 1.0: —

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Nova Premier 1.0 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1323 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.2 8B: 49.8 (#183)
- Nova Premier 1.0: 51.0 (#174)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Nova Premier 1.0 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1319 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1238 | — |
| WildBench | — | 78.8% |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1299 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Nova Premier 1.0?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 37.7 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Nova Premier 1.0?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Nova Premier 1.0 lists at $2.50 and $12.50.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Nova Premier 1.0 does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Nova Premier 1.0 share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Nova Premier 1.0 has 6.