Model comparison

gpt-oss-120b vs Granite 3.0 8b Instruct

gpt-oss-120b is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.3 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

gpt-oss-120b OpenAI

36.3

Rank #217 Confirmed

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct IBM

31.6

Rank #270 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. gpt-oss-120b scores higher in 6 categories and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct in 2 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in multilingual, where gpt-oss-120b leads 48.0 to 27.2.

Side by side

gpt-oss-120b and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct specifications
gpt-oss-120bGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
ProviderOpenAIIBM
Noometry Index36.331.6
Released2025-08-05—
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window131K—
Max output41K—
Input $ / M tokens$0.037—
Output $ / M tokens$0.17—
Results tracked4814

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Category by category

Coding gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 33.5 (#256), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.7 (#301)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Coding13801112
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)26%—
Aider Polyglot41.8%—
SciCode36%—
WeirdML48.2%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—29.3%
BigCodeBench Complete—35.4%
ALE-Bench575.62—
AlgoTune1.41—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

gpt-oss-120b: 12.2 (#153), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
Terminal-Bench18.7%—
APEX-Agents4.4%—
METR Time Horizons56.6%—
Vending-Bench 2-21.53—

Reasoning Too close to call

gpt-oss-120b: 20.0 (#245), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 20.9 (#230)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Hard Prompts13641092
SimpleBench22.1%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark58.6%—
CritPt1.1%—
Chess Puzzles20%—
Mystery Game Puzzles2%—
DTBench76.3%—
LMCA22.1%—
Surface Evolver Bench25%—
Epoch Capabilities Index139.93—

Math gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 52.5 (#50), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 32.8 (#210)

Math benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Math13891143
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202588.9%—
Omni-MATH68.8%—

Knowledge gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 42.4 (#96), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.6 (#236)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Expert13561087
GPQA Diamond75.8%—
MMLU-Pro79.5%—
Confabulations15.7%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate14.2%—
GPQA (HELM)68.4%—

Multilingual gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 48.0 (#147), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 27.2 (#276)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Non-English13511037
LMArena Chinese13851063
LMArena Russian13431060
LMArena French1369—
LMArena German1353—
LMArena Japanese1331—
LMArena Korean1282—
LMArena Spanish1389—

Instruction Following gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 69.3 (#173), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 56.0 (#276)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following13181088
IFEval83.6%—

Long Context Granite 3.0 8b Instruct leads

gpt-oss-120b: 31.4 (#278), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 34.0 (#252)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Longer Query13191122
Fiction.LiveBench44.4%—

Writing & Preference gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 46.5 (#217), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#285)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bGranite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Text13651096
LMArena Creative Writing12751071
LMArena Multi-Turn13401063
Short-Story Creative Writing77.1%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing961—
WildBench84.5%—

Frequently asked questions

Is gpt-oss-120b better than Granite 3.0 8b Instruct?

gpt-oss-120b is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.3 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

Is gpt-oss-120b or Granite 3.0 8b Instruct better for coding?

gpt-oss-120b scores higher on coding benchmarks: 33.5 versus 29.7 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do gpt-oss-120b and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. gpt-oss-120b has 48 scored results on Noometry and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has 14.

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