Model comparison

GPT-5 Nano vs Granite 4.2 30b

Granite 4.2 30b is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.8 to 33.5 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.

GPT-5 Nano OpenAI

33.5

Rank #241 Confirmed

Granite 4.2 30b IBM

41.8

Rank #130 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5 Nano scores higher in 1 category and Granite 4.2 30b in 6 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Granite 4.2 30b leads 53.8 to 39.1.
  • Granite 4.2 30b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-5 Nano and Granite 4.2 30b specifications
GPT-5 NanoGranite 4.2 30b
ProviderOpenAIIBM
Noometry Index33.541.8
Released2025-08-07—
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window400K—
Max output128K—
Input $ / M tokens$0.05—
Output $ / M tokens$0.40—
Results tracked4911

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Category by category

Coding Granite 4.2 30b leads

GPT-5 Nano: 33.6 (#254), Granite 4.2 30b: 41.0 (#126)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 4.2 30b
LMArena Coding13511396
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)34.8%—
WeirdML38.1%—
ALE-Bench718.67—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

GPT-5 Nano: 25.8 (#106), Granite 4.2 30b: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 4.2 30b
Terminal-Bench21.8%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard51.5%—

Reasoning Granite 4.2 30b leads

GPT-5 Nano: 16.3 (#306), Granite 4.2 30b: 27.8 (#112)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 4.2 30b
LMArena Hard Prompts13281374
ARC-AGI-22.6%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark62.2%—
ARC-AGI-120.7%—
Chess Puzzles27%—
Mystery Game Puzzles9%—
DTBench62.7%—
LMCA7.9%—
Epoch Capabilities Index139.38—
ForecastBench59.1—

Math Not comparable

GPT-5 Nano: 29.4 (#241), Granite 4.2 30b: —

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 4.2 30b
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)20%—
FrontierMath Tier 42.4%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202581.1%—
ProofBench12%—
Omni-MATH54.6%—
LMArena Math1317—
MATH Level 595.2%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)8.3%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)2.1%—

Knowledge Granite 4.2 30b leads

GPT-5 Nano: 35.9 (#178), Granite 4.2 30b: 39.1 (#138)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 4.2 30b
LMArena Expert13211406
GPQA Diamond69.4%—
SimpleQA Verified11.7%—
MMLU-Pro77.8%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate10.5%—
GPQA (HELM)67.9%—

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-5 Nano: 31.3 (#108), Granite 4.2 30b: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 4.2 30b
LMArena Vision1159—
VPCT37.2%—

Multilingual Granite 4.2 30b leads

GPT-5 Nano: 45.3 (#172), Granite 4.2 30b: 47.3 (#151)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 4.2 30b
LMArena Non-English13131340
LMArena Chinese13561414
LMArena Russian12961343
LMArena German1327—
LMArena Japanese1226—
LMArena Korean1269—
LMArena Spanish1360—

Instruction Following GPT-5 Nano leads

GPT-5 Nano: 75.0 (#79), Granite 4.2 30b: 71.2 (#155)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 4.2 30b
LMArena Instruction Following13061347
IFEval93.2%—

Long Context Granite 4.2 30b leads

GPT-5 Nano: 31.3 (#281), Granite 4.2 30b: 41.4 (#140)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 4.2 30b
LMArena Longer Query13121359
Fiction.LiveBench44.4%—

Writing & Preference Granite 4.2 30b leads

GPT-5 Nano: 39.1 (#249), Granite 4.2 30b: 53.8 (#156)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoGranite 4.2 30b
LMArena Text13201361
LMArena Creative Writing12491288
LMArena Multi-Turn13111339
EQ-Bench Creative Writing705—
WildBench80.6%—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-5 Nano better than Granite 4.2 30b?

Granite 4.2 30b is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.8 to 33.5 on the Noometry Index.

Is GPT-5 Nano or Granite 4.2 30b better for coding?

Granite 4.2 30b scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.0 versus 33.6 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do GPT-5 Nano and Granite 4.2 30b share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5 Nano has 49 scored results on Noometry and Granite 4.2 30b has 11.

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