# Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen2.5 7B Instruct

> Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-qwen2-5-7b-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 0

## Summary

- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 38.4 to 17.0.
- Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.17 / $0.70 for Qwen2.5 7B Instruct.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 40.5 | 29.0 |
| Rank | 148 | 320 |
| Context | 131K | 131K |
| Input $/M | $0.06 | $0.17 |
| Output $/M | $0.25 | $0.70 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 36.5 (#208)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 37.6% |
| LMArena Coding | 1380 | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 46.1% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Granite 4.2 8B: —
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 23.8 (#124)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| BALROG | — | 7.8% |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 14.8 (#322)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1329 | — |
| DTBench | — | 47.7% |
| LMCA | — | 6.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 118.51 |

## Math

- Granite 4.2 8B: —
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 12.6 (#306)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 2.5% |
| Omni-MATH | — | 29.4% |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 17.0 (#286)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 35.5% |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 53.9% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 34.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1384 | — |
| MMLU | — | 72.9% |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1302 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1366 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1285 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 63.2 (#231)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | — | 74.1% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1301 | — |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1324 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 48.8 (#195)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1320 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1236 | — |
| WildBench | — | 73.1% |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1301 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Qwen2.5 7B Instruct?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen2.5 7B Instruct?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Qwen2.5 7B Instruct lists at $0.17 and $0.70.

### Is Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen2.5 7B Instruct better for coding?

Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.5 versus 36.5 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 131K tokens.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct has 15.