Model comparison
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct vs Grok-3 mini
Grok-3 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.0 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.1 8b Instruct scores higher in 1 category and Grok-3 mini in 7 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in instruction following, where Grok-3 mini leads 78.7 to 58.9.
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Grok-3 mini | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | xAI |
| Noometry Index | 31.8 | 41.0 |
| Released | — | 2025-04-09 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | — | — |
| Max output | — | — |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | — |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | — |
| Results tracked | 13 | 35 |
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Category by category
Coding Grok-3 mini leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 33.9 (#232), Grok-3 mini: 40.4 (#126)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1186 | 1380 |
| Aider Polyglot | — | 49.3% |
| WeirdML | — | 42.6% |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 23.9 (#113), Grok-3 mini: —
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | — |
Reasoning Granite 3.1 8b Instruct leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 21.2 (#204), Grok-3 mini: 13.8 (#323)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1146 | 1374 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 0.4% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 61.3% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 16.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 140.35 |
Math Grok-3 mini leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 30.4 (#210), Grok-3 mini: 40.3 (#78)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1152 | 1386 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 77.8% |
| Omni-MATH | — | 31.8% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 90.9% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 5.9% |
Knowledge Grok-3 mini leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 30.6 (#218), Grok-3 mini: 46.3 (#75)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1142 | 1395 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 76.3% |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 79.9% |
| Confabulations | — | 10.8% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 67.5% |
Multilingual Grok-3 mini leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#255), Grok-3 mini: 48.3 (#141)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1099 | 1352 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1145 | 1387 |
| LMArena Russian | 1092 | 1352 |
| LMArena French | — | 1357 |
| LMArena German | — | 1350 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1343 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1336 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1379 |
Instruction Following Grok-3 mini leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 58.9 (#254), Grok-3 mini: 78.7 (#8)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1131 | 1356 |
| IFEval | — | 95.1% |
Long Context Grok-3 mini leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.2 (#236), Grok-3 mini: 41.0 (#142)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1162 | 1372 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
Writing & Preference Grok-3 mini leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.7 (#261), Grok-3 mini: 52.7 (#163)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1150 | 1370 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1129 | 1342 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1108 | 1355 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 73.5% |
| WildBench | — | 65.1% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct better than Grok-3 mini?
Grok-3 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.0 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct or Grok-3 mini better for coding?
Grok-3 mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 33.9 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Granite 3.1 8b Instruct and Grok-3 mini share?
12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has 13 scored results on Noometry and Grok-3 mini has 35.