Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.8 vs Granite 4.2 3b

Claude Opus 4.8 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.7 to 39.0 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 4.8 Anthropic

60.7

Rank #9 Confirmed

Granite 4.2 3b IBM

39.0

Rank #163 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher in 7 categories and Granite 4.2 3b in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Opus 4.8 leads 64.6 to 25.0.
  • Granite 4.2 3b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Opus 4.8 and Granite 4.2 3b specifications
Claude Opus 4.8Granite 4.2 3b
ProviderAnthropicIBM
Noometry Index60.739.0
Released2026-05-28—
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M—
Max output128K—
Input $ / M tokens$5—
Output $ / M tokens$25—
Results tracked6511

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Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 60.2 (#9), Granite 4.2 3b: 39.4 (#146)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Granite 4.2 3b
LMArena Coding14911363
DeepSWE59%—
FrontierCode46.5%—
LMArena WebDev1556—
SciCode53.5%—
GSO47.1%—
WeirdML82.9%—
ALE-Bench1,564—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Opus 4.8: 47.6 (#10), Granite 4.2 3b: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Granite 4.2 3b
APEX-Agents48.9%—
OSWorld 2.020.6%—
Remote Labor Index8.3%—
τ²-bench Banking39.7%—
DeepResearch Bench50.2%—
PostTrainBench33.8%—
GBAEval70.9%—
GDP.pdf24%—
LMArena Search1204—
Vending-Bench 25,787—

Reasoning Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 64.6 (#14), Granite 4.2 3b: 25.0 (#136)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Granite 4.2 3b
LMArena Hard Prompts14811308
ARC-AGI-272.1%—
SimpleBench64.8%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark88.8%—
NYT Connections (extended)91.1%—
ARC-AGI-192.5%—
CritPt20.9%—
Chess Puzzles34%—
EnigmaEval23.5%—
EBR-Bench28.6%—
Mystery Game Puzzles36%—
DTBench94.9%—
LMCA57.5%—
Surface Evolver Bench87.5%—
Bench to the Future 30.14—
Epoch Capabilities Index158.3—
ForecastBench59.9—

Math Not comparable

Claude Opus 4.8: 78.2 (#11), Granite 4.2 3b: —

Knowledge Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 61.3 (#26), Granite 4.2 3b: 35.6 (#169)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Granite 4.2 3b
LMArena Expert15011313
GPQA Diamond91%—
SimpleQA Verified53%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Opus 4.8: 43.2 (#20), Granite 4.2 3b: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Granite 4.2 3b
LMArena Vision1295—
Blueprint-Bench 214.5%—
Furniture Assembly42.5%—
LMArena Document1475—

Multilingual Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 55.4 (#31), Granite 4.2 3b: 42.4 (#193)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Granite 4.2 3b
LMArena Non-English14501268
LMArena Chinese15091268
LMArena Russian14761249
LMArena French1482—
LMArena German1470—
LMArena Japanese1440—
LMArena Korean1432—
LMArena Spanish1470—

Instruction Following Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 77.6 (#22), Granite 4.2 3b: 67.2 (#195)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Granite 4.2 3b
LMArena Instruction Following14761271

Long Context Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 45.4 (#37), Granite 4.2 3b: 39.3 (#179)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Granite 4.2 3b
LMArena Longer Query14821293

Writing & Preference Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 72.1 (#17), Granite 4.2 3b: 47.9 (#202)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Granite 4.2 3b
LMArena Text14601295
LMArena Creative Writing14531215
LMArena Multi-Turn14761293
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1840—
EQ-Bench 41281—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than Granite 4.2 3b?

Claude Opus 4.8 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.7 to 39.0 on the Noometry Index.

Is Claude Opus 4.8 or Granite 4.2 3b better for coding?

Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 60.2 versus 39.4 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 4.8 and Granite 4.2 3b share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 4.8 has 65 scored results on Noometry and Granite 4.2 3b has 11.

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