Model comparison
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct vs MiniMax-M3
MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.
MiniMaxSummary
- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.1 8b Instruct scores higher in 1 category and MiniMax-M3 in 8 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M3 leads 58.4 to 30.6.
Side by side
| Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | MiniMax-M3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | MiniMax |
| Noometry Index | 31.8 | 43.5 |
| Released | — | 2026-06-01 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | — | 1M |
| Max output | — | 512K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $1.20 |
| Results tracked | 13 | 41 |
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Category by category
Coding MiniMax-M3 leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 33.9 (#232), MiniMax-M3: 41.5 (#111)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1186 | 1470 |
| FrontierCode | — | 14.7% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1482 |
| SciCode | — | 47.1% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 640.02 |
Agentic & Tool Use Granite 3.1 8b Instruct leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 23.9 (#113), MiniMax-M3: 22.5 (#121)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | — | 37.7% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | — |
| OSWorld 2.0 | — | 4.6% |
| GBAEval | — | 0.9% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 2,158 |
Reasoning MiniMax-M3 leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 21.2 (#204), MiniMax-M3: 29.3 (#83)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1146 | 1447 |
| SimpleBench | — | 45.8% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 65.1% |
| CritPt | — | 3.7% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 14% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 8% |
| DTBench | — | 78.9% |
| LMCA | — | 33.7% |
| Surface Evolver Bench | — | 55% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 147 |
| ForecastBench | — | 61.4 |
Math MiniMax-M3 leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 30.4 (#210), MiniMax-M3: 39.1 (#83)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1152 | 1432 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 71.1% |
| ProofBench | — | 18% |
Knowledge MiniMax-M3 leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 30.6 (#218), MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#32)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1142 | 1462 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 90.9% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: —, MiniMax-M3: 39.5 (#45)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1254 |
| LMArena Document | — | 1435 |
Multilingual MiniMax-M3 leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#255), MiniMax-M3: 53.2 (#70)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1099 | 1420 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1145 | 1465 |
| LMArena Russian | 1092 | 1430 |
| LMArena French | — | 1445 |
| LMArena German | — | 1424 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1381 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1372 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1431 |
Instruction Following MiniMax-M3 leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 58.9 (#254), MiniMax-M3: 75.7 (#56)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1131 | 1433 |
Long Context MiniMax-M3 leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.2 (#236), MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#68)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1162 | 1445 |
Writing & Preference MiniMax-M3 leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.7 (#261), MiniMax-M3: 62.3 (#79)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | MiniMax-M3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1150 | 1433 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1129 | 1405 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1108 | 1441 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | — | 1150 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct better than MiniMax-M3?
MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct or MiniMax-M3 better for coding?
MiniMax-M3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.5 versus 33.9 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Granite 3.1 8b Instruct and MiniMax-M3 share?
12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has 13 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M3 has 41.