Model comparison

GPT-5 Nano vs Granite 3.0 8b Instruct

GPT-5 Nano is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.4 to 31.1 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

GPT-5 Nano OpenAI

33.4

Rank #234 Confirmed

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct IBM

31.1

Rank #266 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5 Nano scores higher in 5 categories and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct in 3 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in instruction following, where GPT-5 Nano leads 75.2 to 56.2.
  • Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-5 Nano and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct specifications
GPT-5 NanoGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
ProviderOpenAIIBM
Noometry Index33.431.1
Released2025-08-07—
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window400K—
Max output128K—
Input $ / M tokens$0.05—
Output $ / M tokens$0.40—
Results tracked4814

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Category by category

Coding GPT-5 Nano leads

GPT-5 Nano: 33.3 (#248), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.1 (#297)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Coding13511113
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)34.8%—
WeirdML38.1%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—29.3%
BigCodeBench Complete—35.4%
ALE-Bench718.67—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

GPT-5 Nano: 25.6 (#99), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
Terminal-Bench21.8%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard51.5%—

Reasoning Granite 3.0 8b Instruct leads

GPT-5 Nano: 16.4 (#291), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 20.0 (#227)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Hard Prompts13291092
ARC-AGI-22.6%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark62.2%—
ARC-AGI-120.7%—
Chess Puzzles27%—
Mystery Game Puzzles9%—
DTBench62.7%—
LMCA7.9%—
Epoch Capabilities Index139.39—
ForecastBench59.1—

Math Granite 3.0 8b Instruct leads

GPT-5 Nano: 29.1 (#221), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 30.3 (#211)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Math13181143
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)20%—
FrontierMath Tier 42.4%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202581.1%—
ProofBench12%—
Omni-MATH54.6%—
MATH Level 595.2%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)8.3%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)2.1%—

Knowledge GPT-5 Nano leads

GPT-5 Nano: 35.8 (#166), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.1 (#233)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Expert13211087
GPQA Diamond69.4%—
SimpleQA Verified11.7%—
MMLU-Pro77.8%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate10.5%—
GPQA (HELM)67.9%—

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-5 Nano: 30.7 (#102), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Vision1159—
VPCT37.2%—

Multilingual GPT-5 Nano leads

GPT-5 Nano: 45.5 (#167), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 27.4 (#271)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Non-English13131037
LMArena Chinese13551063
LMArena Russian12961060
LMArena German1329—
LMArena Korean1269—
LMArena Spanish1360—

Instruction Following GPT-5 Nano leads

GPT-5 Nano: 75.2 (#72), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 56.2 (#271)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following13061088
IFEval93.2%—

Long Context Granite 3.0 8b Instruct leads

GPT-5 Nano: 31.3 (#275), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 34.0 (#247)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Longer Query13131122
Fiction.LiveBench44.4%—

Writing & Preference GPT-5 Nano leads

GPT-5 Nano: 39.4 (#244), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 31.2 (#280)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Text13201096
LMArena Creative Writing12501071
LMArena Multi-Turn13111063
EQ-Bench Creative Writing705—
WildBench80.6%—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-5 Nano better than Granite 3.0 8b Instruct?

GPT-5 Nano is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.4 to 31.1 on the Noometry Index.

Is GPT-5 Nano or Granite 3.0 8b Instruct better for coding?

GPT-5 Nano scores higher on coding benchmarks: 33.3 versus 29.1 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do GPT-5 Nano and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5 Nano has 48 scored results on Noometry and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has 14.

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