Model comparison
Gemma 3 27B vs Granite 4.2 3b
Granite 4.2 3b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.
GoogleSummary
- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 27B scores higher in 3 categories and Granite 4.2 3b in 4 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in coding, where Granite 4.2 3b leads 39.4 to 22.1.
Side by side
| Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.2 3b | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | |
| Noometry Index | 30.5 | 39.0 |
| Released | 2025-03-11 | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 131K | — |
| Max output | 8K | — |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.08 | — |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.16 | — |
| Results tracked | 43 | 11 |
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Category by category
Coding Granite 4.2 3b leads
Gemma 3 27B: 22.1 (#329), Granite 4.2 3b: 39.4 (#146)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.2 3b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1322 | 1363 |
| Aider Polyglot | 4.9% | — |
| SciCode | 21.2% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 39.9% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Gemma 3 27B: 24.9 (#105), Granite 4.2 3b: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.2 3b |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 29.5% | — |
Reasoning Granite 4.2 3b leads
Gemma 3 27B: 16.3 (#297), Granite 4.2 3b: 25.0 (#136)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.2 3b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1340 | 1308 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.4% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 43.8% | — |
| DTBench | 52.5% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 51.5% | — |
| LMCA | 12.3% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 130.04 | — |
| LiveBench | 50% | — |
Math Not comparable
Gemma 3 27B: 24.4 (#261), Granite 4.2 3b: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.2 3b |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 22.5% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 55.4% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1312 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 74% | — |
Knowledge Granite 4.2 3b leads
Gemma 3 27B: 25.4 (#256), Granite 4.2 3b: 35.6 (#169)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.2 3b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1303 | 1313 |
| GPQA Diamond | 47.7% | — |
| Confabulations | 40.3% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.4% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemma 3 27B: 32.0 (#94), Granite 4.2 3b: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.2 3b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1165 | — |
| GeoBench | 52% | — |
Multilingual Gemma 3 27B leads
Gemma 3 27B: 47.0 (#150), Granite 4.2 3b: 42.4 (#193)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.2 3b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1334 | 1268 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1347 | 1268 |
| LMArena Russian | 1349 | 1249 |
| LMArena French | 1368 | — |
| LMArena German | 1362 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1287 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1308 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1348 | — |
Instruction Following Gemma 3 27B leads
Gemma 3 27B: 70.8 (#155), Granite 4.2 3b: 67.2 (#195)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.2 3b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1321 | 1271 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 74.9% | — |
Long Context Granite 4.2 3b leads
Gemma 3 27B: 27.6 (#288), Granite 4.2 3b: 39.3 (#179)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.2 3b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1333 | 1293 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 33.3% | — |
Writing & Preference Gemma 3 27B leads
Gemma 3 27B: 52.7 (#161), Granite 4.2 3b: 47.9 (#202)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.2 3b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1358 | 1295 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1346 | 1215 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1344 | 1293 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 79.9% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1266 | — |
| LiveBench Language | 34.6% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemma 3 27B better than Granite 4.2 3b?
Granite 4.2 3b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index.
Is Gemma 3 27B or Granite 4.2 3b better for coding?
Granite 4.2 3b scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.4 versus 22.1 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 27B and Granite 4.2 3b share?
11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 27B has 43 scored results on Noometry and Granite 4.2 3b has 11.