Model comparison
GPT-4.1 mini vs Granite 3.1 8b Instruct
GPT-4.1 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.6 to 32.4 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 13 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-4.1 mini scores higher in 5 categories and Granite 3.1 8b Instruct in 4 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in instruction following, where GPT-4.1 mini leads 73.7 to 58.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 50.5% for GPT-4.1 mini and 27.1% for Granite 3.1 8b Instruct.
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| GPT-4.1 mini | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | IBM |
| Noometry Index | 33.6 | 32.4 |
| Released | 2025-04-14 | — |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1.05M | — |
| Max output | 33K | — |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.40 | — |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.60 | — |
| Results tracked | 47 | 13 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Granite 3.1 8b Instruct leads
GPT-4.1 mini: 30.6 (#293), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 34.5 (#233)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1367 | 1186 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 23.9% | — |
| Aider Polyglot | 32.4% | — |
| SciCode | 40.4% | — |
| WeirdML | 37.6% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 48.9% | — |
| CadEval | 16% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use GPT-4.1 mini leads
GPT-4.1 mini: 33.3 (#55), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 24.1 (#120)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 50.5% | 27.1% |
Reasoning Granite 3.1 8b Instruct leads
GPT-4.1 mini: 10.8 (#340), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 22.1 (#207)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1349 | 1145 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 48.6% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 3.5% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 7% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 7% | — |
| DTBench | 68.8% | — |
| LMCA | 21.1% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 135.01 | — |
Math Granite 3.1 8b Instruct leads
GPT-4.1 mini: 24.1 (#270), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 33.0 (#209)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1343 | 1152 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 6.7% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 44.7% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 49.1% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 87.3% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 4.5% | — |
Knowledge GPT-4.1 mini leads
GPT-4.1 mini: 34.7 (#194), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#220)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1338 | 1142 |
| GPQA Diamond | 65.8% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 12.7% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 78.3% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 61.4% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
GPT-4.1 mini: 35.8 (#82), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: —
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1181 | — |
Multilingual GPT-4.1 mini leads
GPT-4.1 mini: 45.7 (#166), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 30.9 (#260)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | 1099 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1329 | 1145 |
| LMArena Russian | 1324 | 1092 |
| LMArena French | 1358 | — |
| LMArena German | 1351 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1290 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1298 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1319 | — |
Instruction Following GPT-4.1 mini leads
GPT-4.1 mini: 73.7 (#118), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 58.6 (#259)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1333 | 1131 |
| IFEval | 90.4% | — |
Long Context Granite 3.1 8b Instruct leads
GPT-4.1 mini: 31.8 (#275), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.2 (#241)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1344 | 1162 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 44.4% | — |
Writing & Preference GPT-4.1 mini leads
GPT-4.1 mini: 48.6 (#199), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.5 (#266)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1340 | 1150 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1300 | 1129 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1354 | 1108 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1147 | — |
| WildBench | 83.8% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is GPT-4.1 mini better than Granite 3.1 8b Instruct?
GPT-4.1 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.6 to 32.4 on the Noometry Index.
Is GPT-4.1 mini or Granite 3.1 8b Instruct better for coding?
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 34.5 versus 30.6 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do GPT-4.1 mini and Granite 3.1 8b Instruct share?
13 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-4.1 mini has 47 scored results on Noometry and Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has 13.