Model comparison

Granite 4.2 30b vs Grok 4

Grok 4 is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.1 to 41.8 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.2 30b IBM

41.8

Rank #130 Confirmed

Grok 4 xAI

48.1

Rank #56 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 30b scores higher in 0 categories and Grok 4 in 7 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in long context, where Grok 4 leads 63.1 to 41.4.
  • Granite 4.2 30b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Granite 4.2 30b and Grok 4 specifications
Granite 4.2 30bGrok 4
ProviderIBMxAI
Noometry Index41.848.1
Released—2025-07-09
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window——
Max output——
Input $ / M tokens——
Output $ / M tokens——
Results tracked1148

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Category by category

Coding Grok 4 leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 41.0 (#126), Grok 4: 50.3 (#46)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bGrok 4
LMArena Coding13961408
Aider Polyglot—79.6%
WeirdML—45.7%

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 4.2 30b: —, Grok 4: 32.3 (#68)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bGrok 4
Terminal-Bench—27.2%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—63%
GDPval—21.1%
Cybench—43%
DeepResearch Bench—47.3%
BALROG—43.6%
LMArena Search—1142
METR Time Horizons—66.6%

Reasoning Grok 4 leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 27.8 (#112), Grok 4: 36.7 (#65)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bGrok 4
LMArena Hard Prompts13741409
ARC-AGI-2—16%
SimpleBench—60.5%
Kagi LLM Benchmark—73.6%
ARC-AGI-1—66.7%
Chess Puzzles—28%
Epoch Capabilities Index—146.44
ForecastBench—60.9

Math Not comparable

Granite 4.2 30b: —, Grok 4: 48.4 (#64)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bGrok 4
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—84%
Omni-MATH—60.3%
LMArena Math—1422
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)—19.7%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)—2.1%

Knowledge Grok 4 leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 39.1 (#138), Grok 4: 53.8 (#55)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bGrok 4
LMArena Expert14061415
GPQA Diamond—87%
MMLU-Pro—85.1%
Confabulations—12.4%
GPQA (HELM)—72.7%

Multimodal Not comparable

Granite 4.2 30b: —, Grok 4: 33.7 (#94)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bGrok 4
LMArena Vision—1210
GeoBench—45%

Multilingual Grok 4 leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 47.3 (#151), Grok 4: 51.8 (#103)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bGrok 4
LMArena Non-English13401403
LMArena Chinese14141427
LMArena Russian13431410
LMArena French—1418
LMArena German—1429
LMArena Japanese—1394
LMArena Korean—1377
LMArena Spanish—1420

Instruction Following Grok 4 leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 71.2 (#155), Grok 4: 79.2 (#5)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bGrok 4
LMArena Instruction Following13471387
IFEval—94.9%

Long Context Grok 4 leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 41.4 (#140), Grok 4: 63.1 (#4)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bGrok 4
LMArena Longer Query13591409
Fiction.LiveBench—94.4%

Writing & Preference Grok 4 leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 53.8 (#156), Grok 4: 58.5 (#116)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bGrok 4
LMArena Text13611411
LMArena Creative Writing12881397
LMArena Multi-Turn13391416
Short-Story Creative Writing—76.9%
WildBench—79.7%

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 30b better than Grok 4?

Grok 4 is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.1 to 41.8 on the Noometry Index.

Is Granite 4.2 30b or Grok 4 better for coding?

Grok 4 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.3 versus 41.0 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 30b and Grok 4 share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 30b has 11 scored results on Noometry and Grok 4 has 48.

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