Model comparison

GPT-5.5 vs Granite 3.1 8b Instruct

GPT-5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 63.4 to 32.4 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

GPT-5.5 OpenAI

63.4

Rank #9 Confirmed

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct IBM

32.4

Rank #258 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5.5 scores higher in 9 categories and Granite 3.1 8b Instruct in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where GPT-5.5 leads 72.8 to 22.1.
  • Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-5.5 and Granite 3.1 8b Instruct specifications
GPT-5.5Granite 3.1 8b Instruct
ProviderOpenAIIBM
Noometry Index63.432.4
Released2026-04-23—
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M—
Max output128K—
Input $ / M tokens$5—
Output $ / M tokens$30—
Results tracked7113

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Category by category

Coding GPT-5.5 leads

GPT-5.5: 58.2 (#17), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 34.5 (#233)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Granite 3.1 8b Instruct
LMArena Coding14941186
SWE-bench Verified80.6%—
DeepSWE67%—
FrontierCode43%—
LMArena WebDev1513—
SciCode56.1%—
GSO40.2%—
WeirdML84.9%—
MirrorCode10%—
ALE-Bench1,943—

Agentic & Tool Use GPT-5.5 leads

GPT-5.5: 50.7 (#6), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 24.1 (#120)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Granite 3.1 8b Instruct
Terminal-Bench84.7%—
APEX-Agents55.1%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—27.1%
OSWorld 2.013%—
Remote Labor Index6.3%—
τ²-bench Banking44.6%—
DeepResearch Bench54%—
PostTrainBench27.2%—
ExploitBench47.4%—
GBAEval53.2%—
GDP.pdf26%—
LMArena Search1242—
Vending-Bench 27,524—

Reasoning GPT-5.5 leads

GPT-5.5: 72.8 (#11), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 22.1 (#207)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Granite 3.1 8b Instruct
LMArena Hard Prompts14891145
ARC-AGI-285%—
SimpleBench69%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark88.8%—
NYT Connections (extended)96.2%—
ARC-AGI-195%—
CritPt27.1%—
Chess Puzzles54%—
EBR-Bench34.3%—
Mystery Game Puzzles56%—
DTBench96%—
LMCA54.3%—
Surface Evolver Bench88.1%—
Bench to the Future 30.14—
Epoch Capabilities Index159.1—
ForecastBench60.6—

Math GPT-5.5 leads

GPT-5.5: 81.7 (#11), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 33.0 (#209)

Knowledge GPT-5.5 leads

GPT-5.5: 64.4 (#17), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#220)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Granite 3.1 8b Instruct
LMArena Expert15081142
GPQA Diamond94%—
SimpleQA Verified63%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate9.3%—

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-5.5: 46.9 (#12), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Granite 3.1 8b Instruct
LMArena Vision1297—
Blueprint-Bench 236.2%—
Furniture Assembly44.2%—
LMArena Document1486—

Multilingual GPT-5.5 leads

GPT-5.5: 56.4 (#20), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 30.9 (#260)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Granite 3.1 8b Instruct
LMArena Non-English14671099
LMArena Chinese15331145
LMArena Russian14731092
LMArena French1486—
LMArena German1480—
LMArena Japanese1498—
LMArena Korean1460—
LMArena Spanish1468—

Instruction Following GPT-5.5 leads

GPT-5.5: 77.5 (#18), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 58.6 (#259)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Granite 3.1 8b Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following14791131

Long Context GPT-5.5 leads

GPT-5.5: 48.3 (#12), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.2 (#241)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Granite 3.1 8b Instruct
LMArena Longer Query14841162
CL-bench Life22.2%—

Writing & Preference GPT-5.5 leads

GPT-5.5: 72.7 (#13), Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.5 (#266)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.5Granite 3.1 8b Instruct
LMArena Text14721150
LMArena Creative Writing14551129
LMArena Multi-Turn14761108
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1844—
EQ-Bench 41315—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-5.5 better than Granite 3.1 8b Instruct?

GPT-5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 63.4 to 32.4 on the Noometry Index.

Is GPT-5.5 or Granite 3.1 8b Instruct better for coding?

GPT-5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 58.2 versus 34.5 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do GPT-5.5 and Granite 3.1 8b Instruct share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5.5 has 71 scored results on Noometry and Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has 13.

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