Model comparison

GPT-5.6 Sol vs Granite 4.2 3b

GPT-5.6 Sol is the stronger model overall, scoring 65.0 to 39.4 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.

GPT-5.6 Sol OpenAI

65.0

Rank #7 Confirmed

Granite 4.2 3b IBM

39.4

Rank #169 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5.6 Sol 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 GPT-5.6 Sol leads 74.8 to 26.0.
  • Granite 4.2 3b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-5.6 Sol and Granite 4.2 3b specifications
GPT-5.6 SolGranite 4.2 3b
ProviderOpenAIIBM
Noometry Index65.039.4
Released2026-07-09—
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M—
Max output128K—
Input $ / M tokens$4—
Output $ / M tokens$20—
Results tracked6511

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Category by category

Coding GPT-5.6 Sol leads

GPT-5.6 Sol: 65.1 (#7), Granite 4.2 3b: 40.0 (#151)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 SolGranite 4.2 3b
LMArena Coding14981361
DeepSWE72.7%—
FrontierCode47.5%—
CursorBench41.7%—
LMArena WebDev1618—
FrontierSWE32.2%—
SciCode57.1%—
GSO76.5%—
WeirdML89.4%—
MirrorCode20%—
ALE-Bench2,177—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

GPT-5.6 Sol: 50.3 (#7), Granite 4.2 3b: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 SolGranite 4.2 3b
APEX-Agents51.4%—
OSWorld 2.027.3%—
τ²-bench Banking46.9%—
PostTrainBench36.2%—
BALROG60%—
GBAEval52.6%—
GDP.pdf30.7%—
LMArena Search1257—
Vending-Bench 29,619—

Reasoning GPT-5.6 Sol leads

GPT-5.6 Sol: 74.8 (#8), Granite 4.2 3b: 26.0 (#138)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 SolGranite 4.2 3b
LMArena Hard Prompts14841306
ARC-AGI-292.5%—
SimpleBench71.7%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark67%—
NYT Connections (extended)93.8%—
ARC-AGI-197.5%—
CritPt32.3%—
Chess Puzzles64%—
EnigmaEval37.1%—
EBR-Bench44.8%—
Mystery Game Puzzles58%—
DTBench96%—
LMCA59.2%—
Surface Evolver Bench93.1%—
Bench to the Future 30.14—
Epoch Capabilities Index161.66—

Math Not comparable

GPT-5.6 Sol: 85.6 (#9), Granite 4.2 3b: —

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 SolGranite 4.2 3b
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)89.1%—
FrontierMath Tier 482.9%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025100%—
ProofBench83%—
LMArena Math1474—
FrontierMath Erdős0%—

Knowledge GPT-5.6 Sol leads

GPT-5.6 Sol: 64.3 (#18), Granite 4.2 3b: 36.3 (#171)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 SolGranite 4.2 3b
LMArena Expert15161315
GPQA Diamond93.5%—
SimpleQA Verified69.7%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate12.4%—

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-5.6 Sol: 48.6 (#9), Granite 4.2 3b: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 SolGranite 4.2 3b
LMArena Vision1281—
Blueprint-Bench 233.6%—
Furniture Assembly56.7%—
LMArena Document1483—

Multilingual GPT-5.6 Sol leads

GPT-5.6 Sol: 55.3 (#32), Granite 4.2 3b: 42.1 (#198)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 SolGranite 4.2 3b
LMArena Non-English14521268
LMArena Chinese15271269
LMArena Russian14681249
LMArena French1477—
LMArena German1476—
LMArena Japanese1471—
LMArena Korean1442—
LMArena Spanish1441—

Instruction Following GPT-5.6 Sol leads

GPT-5.6 Sol: 77.7 (#16), Granite 4.2 3b: 67.1 (#200)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 SolGranite 4.2 3b
LMArena Instruction Following14821273

Long Context GPT-5.6 Sol leads

GPT-5.6 Sol: 45.4 (#42), Granite 4.2 3b: 39.2 (#185)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 SolGranite 4.2 3b
LMArena Longer Query14801291

Writing & Preference GPT-5.6 Sol leads

GPT-5.6 Sol: 73.3 (#12), Granite 4.2 3b: 47.2 (#212)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 SolGranite 4.2 3b
LMArena Text14571293
LMArena Creative Writing14481205
LMArena Multi-Turn14601290
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1972—
EQ-Bench 41250—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-5.6 Sol better than Granite 4.2 3b?

GPT-5.6 Sol is the stronger model overall, scoring 65.0 to 39.4 on the Noometry Index.

Is GPT-5.6 Sol or Granite 4.2 3b better for coding?

GPT-5.6 Sol scores higher on coding benchmarks: 65.1 versus 40.0 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do GPT-5.6 Sol and Granite 4.2 3b share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5.6 Sol has 65 scored results on Noometry and Granite 4.2 3b has 11.

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