Model comparison

Granite 4.2 30b vs Qwen3 8B

Granite 4.2 30b is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.4 to 33.3 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 0 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.2 30b IBM

41.4

Rank #126 Confirmed

Qwen3 8B Alibaba (Qwen)

33.3

Rank #237 Confirmed

Summary

  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Granite 4.2 30b leads 26.7 to 16.1.

Side by side

Granite 4.2 30b and Qwen3 8B specifications
Granite 4.2 30bQwen3 8B
ProviderIBMAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index41.433.3
Released—2025-04
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window—131K
Max output—8K
Input $ / M tokens—$0.18
Output $ / M tokens—$0.70
Results tracked1111

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Category by category

Coding Granite 4.2 30b leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 40.4 (#127), Qwen3 8B: 33.4 (#245)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 8B
SciCode—22.6%
LMArena Coding1394—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 4.2 30b: —, Qwen3 8B: 29.9 (#71)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 8B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—42.6%

Reasoning Granite 4.2 30b leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 26.7 (#114), Qwen3 8B: 16.1 (#299)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 8B
CritPt—0%
Chess Puzzles—5%
LMArena Hard Prompts1375—
DTBench—59.7%
LMCA—8.8%
Epoch Capabilities Index—136.17

Math Not comparable

Granite 4.2 30b: —, Qwen3 8B: 33.3 (#176)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 8B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—56.1%

Knowledge Granite 4.2 30b leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 38.5 (#134), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#164)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 8B
GPQA Diamond—56.8%
Vectara Hallucination Rate—4.8%
LMArena Expert1405—

Multilingual Not comparable

Granite 4.2 30b: 47.4 (#146), Qwen3 8B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 8B
LMArena Non-English1340—
LMArena Chinese1415—
LMArena Russian1342—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Granite 4.2 30b: 71.3 (#150), Qwen3 8B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 8B
LMArena Instruction Following1346—

Long Context Granite 4.2 30b leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 41.4 (#135), Qwen3 8B: 37.8 (#205)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 8B
Fiction.LiveBench—62.1%
LMArena Longer Query1359—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Granite 4.2 30b: 54.3 (#147), Qwen3 8B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 8B
LMArena Text1363—
LMArena Creative Writing1294—
LMArena Multi-Turn1340—

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 30b better than Qwen3 8B?

Granite 4.2 30b is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.4 to 33.3 on the Noometry Index.

Is Granite 4.2 30b or Qwen3 8B better for coding?

Granite 4.2 30b scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 33.4 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 30b and Qwen3 8B share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 30b has 11 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.

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