Model comparison

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct vs Qwen3.8 27B

Qwen3.8 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.0 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct IBM

31.6

Rank #270 Confirmed

Qwen3.8 27B Alibaba (Qwen)

46.0

Rank #68 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.8 27B in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.8 27B leads 65.8 to 31.1.

Side by side

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct and Qwen3.8 27B specifications
Granite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.8 27B
ProviderIBMAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index31.646.0
Released—2026-08-14
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window—262K
Max output—33K
Input $ / M tokens—$0.99
Output $ / M tokens—$1.49
Results tracked1431

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.8 27B leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.7 (#301), Qwen3.8 27B: 50.5 (#44)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Coding11121482
LMArena WebDev—1593
SciCode—46.6%
BigCodeBench Instruct29.3%—
BigCodeBench Complete35.4%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —, Qwen3.8 27B: 32.9 (#57)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.8 27B
APEX-Agents—47.5%

Reasoning Qwen3.8 27B leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 20.9 (#230), Qwen3.8 27B: 41.0 (#54)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Hard Prompts10921460
ARC-AGI-2—42.4%
NYT Connections (extended)—54.5%
ARC-AGI-1—87.5%
CritPt—5.4%
DTBench—88%
LMCA—41.4%
Surface Evolver Bench—45%
Epoch Capabilities Index—149.38

Math Qwen3.8 27B leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 32.8 (#210), Qwen3.8 27B: 37.1 (#161)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Math11431456
ProofBench—16%

Knowledge Qwen3.8 27B leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.6 (#236), Qwen3.8 27B: 41.6 (#109)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Expert10871482

Multimodal Not comparable

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —, Qwen3.8 27B: 41.3 (#37)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Vision—1271

Multilingual Qwen3.8 27B leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 27.2 (#276), Qwen3.8 27B: 53.7 (#60)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Non-English10371430
LMArena Chinese10631504
LMArena Russian10601415
LMArena French—1465
LMArena German—1438
LMArena Japanese—1384
LMArena Korean—1393
LMArena Spanish—1448

Instruction Following Qwen3.8 27B leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 56.0 (#276), Qwen3.8 27B: 75.8 (#53)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Instruction Following10881439

Long Context Qwen3.8 27B leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 34.0 (#252), Qwen3.8 27B: 44.3 (#70)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Longer Query11221450

Writing & Preference Qwen3.8 27B leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#285), Qwen3.8 27B: 65.8 (#43)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Text10961441
LMArena Creative Writing10711384
LMArena Multi-Turn10631441
EQ-Bench Creative Writing—1671

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct better than Qwen3.8 27B?

Qwen3.8 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.0 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct or Qwen3.8 27B better for coding?

Qwen3.8 27B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.5 versus 29.7 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Granite 3.0 8b Instruct and Qwen3.8 27B share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has 14 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.8 27B has 31.

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