Model comparison

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct vs o3-mini

o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct IBM

31.6

Rank #270 Confirmed

o3-mini OpenAI

36.7

Rank #212 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct scores higher in 3 categories and o3-mini in 5 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where o3-mini leads 50.3 to 31.1.
  • Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct and o3-mini specifications
Granite 3.0 8b Instructo3-mini
ProviderIBMOpenAI
Noometry Index31.636.7
Released—2024-12-20
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window—200K
Max output—100K
Input $ / M tokens—$1.10
Output $ / M tokens—$4.40
Results tracked1451

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Category by category

Coding o3-mini leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.7 (#301), o3-mini: 40.8 (#132)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b Instructo3-mini
LMArena Coding11121378
Aider Polyglot—60.4%
SciCode—39.8%
GSO—1.3%
WeirdML—43.7%
BigCodeBench Instruct29.3%—
LiveBench Coding—82.7%
BigCodeBench Complete35.4%—
CadEval—54%

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —, o3-mini: 29.6 (#84)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b Instructo3-mini
Cybench—22.5%

Reasoning Granite 3.0 8b Instruct leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 20.9 (#230), o3-mini: 16.3 (#305)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b Instructo3-mini
LMArena Hard Prompts10921366
ARC-AGI-2—3%
SimpleBench—22.8%
ARC-AGI-1—34.5%
CritPt—0.3%
Chess Puzzles—17%
LiveBench Reasoning—89.6%
Mystery Game Puzzles—7%
DTBench—68.8%
LiveBench Data Analysis—70.6%
LMCA—19%
Epoch Capabilities Index—140.34
ForecastBench—59.6
LiveBench—75.9%

Math Granite 3.0 8b Instruct leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 32.8 (#210), o3-mini: 28.1 (#244)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b Instructo3-mini
LMArena Math11431396
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—18.6%
FrontierMath Tier 4—0%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—76.9%
LiveBench Math—77.3%
MATH Level 5—96.5%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)—12.4%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)—4.2%

Knowledge o3-mini leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.6 (#236), o3-mini: 38.3 (#146)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b Instructo3-mini
LMArena Expert10871364
GPQA Diamond—77%
SimpleQA Verified—15.3%
Confabulations—17.9%

Multilingual o3-mini leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 27.2 (#276), o3-mini: 45.7 (#164)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b Instructo3-mini
LMArena Non-English10371319
LMArena Chinese10631379
LMArena Russian10601304
LMArena French—1334
LMArena German—1303
LMArena Japanese—1286
LMArena Korean—1314
LMArena Spanish—1321

Instruction Following o3-mini leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 56.0 (#276), o3-mini: 75.1 (#72)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b Instructo3-mini
LMArena Instruction Following10881337
LiveBench Instruction Following—84.4%

Long Context Too close to call

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 34.0 (#252), o3-mini: 33.8 (#256)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b Instructo3-mini
LMArena Longer Query11221343
Fiction.LiveBench—50%

Writing & Preference o3-mini leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#285), o3-mini: 50.3 (#182)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b Instructo3-mini
LMArena Text10961337
LMArena Creative Writing10711286
LMArena Multi-Turn10631320
Short-Story Creative Writing—61.7%
LiveBench Language—50.7%

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct better than o3-mini?

o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct or o3-mini better for coding?

o3-mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.8 versus 29.7 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Granite 3.0 8b Instruct and o3-mini share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has 14 scored results on Noometry and o3-mini has 51.

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