Noometry

Model comparison

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview

Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.1 to 31.1 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct IBM

31.1

Rank #266 Confirmed

Qwen3.6 Max Preview Alibaba (Qwen)

51.1

Rank #36 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Max Preview in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads 64.0 to 31.2.
  • Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Granite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.6 Max Preview
ProviderIBMAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index31.151.1
Released—2026-04-20
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window—262K
Max output—66K
Input $ / M tokens—$1.30
Output $ / M tokens—$7.80
Results tracked1429

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.1 (#297), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 48.6 (#50)

BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena Coding11131472
SWE-bench Verified—76.7%
LMArena WebDev—1482
BigCodeBench Instruct29.3%—
BigCodeBench Complete35.4%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —, Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —

BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.6 Max Preview
Vending-Bench 2—4,254

Reasoning Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 20.0 (#227), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 40.8 (#47)

BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena Hard Prompts10921457
SimpleBench—63%
NYT Connections (extended)—74.1%
Chess Puzzles—20%
Mystery Game Puzzles—19%
DTBench—87.2%
LMCA—42.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index—149.27

Math Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 30.3 (#211), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 52.2 (#40)

BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena Math11431465
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—91.1%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)—23.1%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)—4.2%

Knowledge Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.1 (#233), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 57.6 (#35)

BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena Expert10871476
GPQA Diamond—87.4%
SimpleQA Verified—52%

Multilingual Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 27.4 (#271), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.3 (#46)

BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena Non-English10371436
LMArena Chinese10631487
LMArena Russian10601444
LMArena French—1449
LMArena Spanish—1452

Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 56.2 (#271), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 75.8 (#51)

BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena Instruction Following10881437

Long Context Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 34.0 (#247), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 44.6 (#59)

BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena Longer Query11221457

Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 31.2 (#280), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 64.0 (#58)

BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena Text10961447
LMArena Creative Writing10711435
LMArena Multi-Turn10631456

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct better than Qwen3.6 Max Preview?

Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.1 to 31.1 on the Noometry Index.

Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct or Qwen3.6 Max Preview better for coding?

Qwen3.6 Max Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.6 versus 29.1 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Granite 3.0 8b Instruct and Qwen3.6 Max Preview share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has 14 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Max Preview has 29.

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