Model comparison

DeepSeek-V3 vs Granite 4.2 8B

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 39.5 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.

DeepSeek-V3 DeepSeek

39.5

Rank #166 Confirmed

Granite 4.2 8B IBM

40.5

Rank #148 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek-V3 scores higher in 4 categories and Granite 4.2 8B in 3 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where DeepSeek-V3 leads 57.4 to 49.6.
  • Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.24 / $0.90 for DeepSeek-V3.
  • DeepSeek-V3 accepts more context: 164K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

DeepSeek-V3 and Granite 4.2 8B specifications
DeepSeek-V3Granite 4.2 8B
ProviderDeepSeekIBM
Noometry Index39.540.5
Released2024-12-26—
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window164K131K
Max output164K118K
Input $ / M tokens$0.24$0.06
Output $ / M tokens$0.90$0.25
Results tracked6011

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Category by category

Coding DeepSeek-V3 leads

DeepSeek-V3: 42.3 (#106), Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Coding13681380
Aider Polyglot55.1%—
SciCode35.8%—
WeirdML36.1%—
BigCodeBench Instruct50%—
LiveBench Coding70.9%—
BigCodeBench Complete62.2%—
HumanEval+86.6%—
MBPP+73%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

DeepSeek-V3: —, Granite 4.2 8B: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Granite 4.2 8B
METR Time Horizons49.6%—

Reasoning Granite 4.2 8B leads

DeepSeek-V3: 20.5 (#236), Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Hard Prompts13651329
SimpleBench27.2%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark52.3%—
CritPt0%—
LiveBench Reasoning65.8%—
DTBench64.8%—
LiveBench Data Analysis60.9%—
LMCA15.5%—
BIG-Bench Hard87.5%—
Epoch Capabilities Index135.94—
ForecastBench59.1—
HellaSwag88.9%—
LiveBench66.9%—
PIQA84.7%—
WinoGrande85.2%—

Math Not comparable

DeepSeek-V3: 32.1 (#219), Granite 4.2 8B: —

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Granite 4.2 8B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202537.8%—
Omni-MATH40.3%—
LiveBench Math73.5%—
LMArena Math1373—
MATH Level 575.5%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)1.7%—

Knowledge Too close to call

DeepSeek-V3: 37.5 (#155), Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Expert13511384
GPQA Diamond67.6%—
MMLU-Pro72.3%—
Confabulations26.1%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate6.1%—
GPQA (HELM)53.8%—
ARC (AI2) Challenge95.3%—
MMLU87.2%—
TriviaQA82.9%—

Multilingual DeepSeek-V3 leads

DeepSeek-V3: 48.5 (#143), Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Non-English13581302
LMArena Chinese13911366
LMArena Russian13731285
LMArena French1385—
LMArena German1374—
LMArena Japanese1333—
LMArena Korean1319—
LMArena Spanish1358—

Instruction Following DeepSeek-V3 leads

DeepSeek-V3: 72.8 (#130), Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Instruction Following13451301
LiveBench Instruction Following81.5%—
IFEval83.2%—

Long Context Granite 4.2 8B leads

DeepSeek-V3: 34.0 (#253), Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Longer Query13521324
Fiction.LiveBench50%—

Writing & Preference DeepSeek-V3 leads

DeepSeek-V3: 57.4 (#130), Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Granite 4.2 8B
LMArena Text13751320
LMArena Creative Writing13641236
LMArena Multi-Turn13891301
Short-Story Creative Writing77%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1472—
WildBench83%—
LiveBench Language49.1%—

Frequently asked questions

Is DeepSeek-V3 better than Granite 4.2 8B?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 39.5 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-V3 or Granite 4.2 8B?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; DeepSeek-V3 lists at $0.24 and $0.90.

Is DeepSeek-V3 or Granite 4.2 8B better for coding?

DeepSeek-V3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.3 versus 40.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

DeepSeek-V3 does, with 164K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do DeepSeek-V3 and Granite 4.2 8B share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek-V3 has 60 scored results on Noometry and Granite 4.2 8B has 11.

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