Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B leads Granite 4.2 8B on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 11.9 to 11.1, and Granite 4.2 8B costs 7.5x less per output token ($0.20 vs $1.50 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 24 benchmarks have a result for both.
Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Granite 4.2 8B for output tokens 7.5x cheaper ($0.20 vs $1.50 per million) and work measured by LMArena Text: coding or LMArena Text: software and IT, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 24
- Granite 4.2 8B only
- 3
- Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B only
- 29
- Like-for-like categories
- 5 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Neither has a coding score yet.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B leads, 11.9 against 11.1.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Granite 4.2 8B has a AA Agentic Index result, 1.3.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B has a Design Arena: websites result, 1159.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B takes 262K tokens against 131K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Granite 4.2 8B
Granite 4.2 8B $0.0002, Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B $0.0010 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Granite 4.2 8B not benchmarked, Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- General, 8.2 points apart on average over 12 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- LMArena Text: creative writing: Granite 4.2 8B 1236 against Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B 1333, 16.2 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Granite 4.2 8B $0.20 against Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B $1.50 per million output tokens, 7.5x apart.
- Context window
- Granite 4.2 8B takes 131K tokens, Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B 262K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Granite 4.2 8B | Bars | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 2 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 3 | 2 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 4 | ||
| General | 1 | 11 | ||
| All shared boards | 4 | 20 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index02
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | Not measured | 69.6% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1275 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| AA Coding Index | 22.4 | Not measured | Only Granite 4.2 8B measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 58.5% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| SciCode | 31.5% | Not measured | Only Granite 4.2 8B measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 18.9% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Terminal-Bench | Not measured | 27.2% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| GSO-Bench | Not measured | 4.9% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 41.2% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 461.4 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1378 | 1412 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1367 | 1393 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1257 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1287 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 25 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 11.1 | 11.9 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 1.3 | Not measured | Only Granite 4.2 8B measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 43.6% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 39 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index32
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 63.1% | 61.8% | Granite 4.2 8B |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 9.7% | 4.5% | Granite 4.2 8B |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1327 | 1372 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1386 | 1338 | Granite 4.2 8B |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1345 | 1380 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | Not measured | 49.5% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 39.3 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 39.3% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1365 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1367 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 78.8% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1336 | 1347 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1336 | 1347 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1327 | 1358 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1322 | 1343 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | Not measured | 1159 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | Not measured | 1113 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | Not measured | 1099 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | Not measured | 1084 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | Not measured | 1143 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index111
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | Not measured | 40.5% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 45.0% | 45.7% | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text | 1319 | 1357 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1300 | 1355 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1236 | 1333 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: English | 1337 | 1359 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1301 | 1346 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1367 | 1357 | Granite 4.2 8B |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1325 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1311 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1305 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1398 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1360 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1282 | 1366 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1344 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1301 | 1366 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1325 | 1378 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1269 | 1340 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1271 | 1317 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| Neither model has a result on the other 27 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Granite 4.2 8B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Granite 4.2 8B costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Granite 4.2 8B costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | IBM Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | IBM Granite | Qwen |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | August 31, 2026 | July 23, 2025 |
| Context window | 131K | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.08 | $0.30 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.20 | $1.50 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Granite 4.2 8B for output tokens 7.5x cheaper ($0.20 vs $1.50 per million) and work measured by LMArena Text: coding or LMArena Text: software and IT, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B?
Granite 4.2 8B costs $0.08 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B costs $0.30 and $1.50. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B?
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B, with 262K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks is the Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B comparison based on?
24 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Granite 4.2 8B's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.