Model comparison

GPT-5 Mini vs Granite 4.2 3b

GPT-5 Mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.8 to 39.4 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.

GPT-5 Mini OpenAI

41.8

Rank #128 Confirmed

Granite 4.2 3b IBM

39.4

Rank #169 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5 Mini scores higher in 6 categories and Granite 4.2 3b in 1 category; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where GPT-5 Mini leads 45.6 to 36.3.
  • Granite 4.2 3b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-5 Mini and Granite 4.2 3b specifications
GPT-5 MiniGranite 4.2 3b
ProviderOpenAIIBM
Noometry Index41.839.4
Released2025-08-07—
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window400K—
Max output128K—
Input $ / M tokens$0.25—
Output $ / M tokens$2—
Results tracked6011

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Category by category

Coding Too close to call

GPT-5 Mini: 40.1 (#146), Granite 4.2 3b: 40.0 (#151)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniGranite 4.2 3b
LMArena Coding14061361
SWE-bench Verified64.7%—
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)59.8%—
SWE-bench Multilingual39.7%—
SciCode39.2%—
WeirdML52.7%—
ALE-Bench799.77—
AlgoTune1.38—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

GPT-5 Mini: 31.1 (#70), Granite 4.2 3b: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniGranite 4.2 3b
Terminal-Bench34.8%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard55.5%—
Vending-Bench 2-31.18—

Reasoning Granite 4.2 3b leads

GPT-5 Mini: 23.9 (#168), Granite 4.2 3b: 26.0 (#138)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniGranite 4.2 3b
LMArena Hard Prompts13801306
ARC-AGI-24.4%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark70.3%—
ARC-AGI-154.3%—
CritPt0%—
Chess Puzzles30%—
EnigmaEval8.2%—
Mystery Game Puzzles10%—
DTBench80.5%—
LMCA34.2%—
Epoch Capabilities Index145.52—
ForecastBench61—

Math Not comparable

GPT-5 Mini: 46.7 (#69), Granite 4.2 3b: —

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniGranite 4.2 3b
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)46.7%—
FrontierMath Tier 412.2%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202586.7%—
ProofBench9%—
Omni-MATH72.2%—
LMArena Math1378—
MATH Level 597.8%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)27.2%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)6.3%—

Knowledge GPT-5 Mini leads

GPT-5 Mini: 45.6 (#86), Granite 4.2 3b: 36.3 (#171)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniGranite 4.2 3b
LMArena Expert13791315
GPQA Diamond75%—
Humanity's Last Exam19.4%—
SimpleQA Verified21.6%—
MMLU-Pro83.5%—
Confabulations13.3%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate12.9%—
GPQA (HELM)75.6%—

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-5 Mini: 35.6 (#85), Granite 4.2 3b: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniGranite 4.2 3b
LMArena Vision1202—
VPCT40.2%—

Multilingual GPT-5 Mini leads

GPT-5 Mini: 48.9 (#137), Granite 4.2 3b: 42.1 (#198)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniGranite 4.2 3b
LMArena Non-English13631268
LMArena Chinese13851269
LMArena Russian13621249
LMArena French1386—
LMArena German1366—
LMArena Japanese1341—
LMArena Korean1308—
LMArena Spanish1355—

Instruction Following GPT-5 Mini leads

GPT-5 Mini: 76.2 (#46), Granite 4.2 3b: 67.1 (#200)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniGranite 4.2 3b
LMArena Instruction Following13571273
IFEval92.7%—

Long Context GPT-5 Mini leads

GPT-5 Mini: 41.9 (#132), Granite 4.2 3b: 39.2 (#185)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniGranite 4.2 3b
LMArena Longer Query13551291
Fiction.LiveBench69.4%—

Writing & Preference GPT-5 Mini leads

GPT-5 Mini: 55.2 (#148), Granite 4.2 3b: 47.2 (#212)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 MiniGranite 4.2 3b
LMArena Text13731293
LMArena Creative Writing13251205
LMArena Multi-Turn13631290
Short-Story Creative Writing83.1%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1313—
WildBench85.5%—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-5 Mini better than Granite 4.2 3b?

GPT-5 Mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.8 to 39.4 on the Noometry Index.

Is GPT-5 Mini or Granite 4.2 3b better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (40.1 vs 40.0); test both on your own repository before choosing.

How many benchmarks do GPT-5 Mini and Granite 4.2 3b share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5 Mini has 60 scored results on Noometry and Granite 4.2 3b has 11.

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