Model comparison
Granite 4.2 3b vs Grok-3 mini
Grok-3 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.0 to 39.0 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 3b scores higher in 1 category and Grok-3 mini in 6 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in instruction following, where Grok-3 mini leads 78.7 to 67.2.
- Granite 4.2 3b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Granite 4.2 3b | Grok-3 mini | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | xAI |
| Noometry Index | 39.0 | 41.0 |
| Released | — | 2025-04-09 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | — | — |
| Max output | — | — |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | — |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | — |
| Results tracked | 11 | 35 |
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Category by category
Coding Grok-3 mini leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 39.4 (#146), Grok-3 mini: 40.4 (#126)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1363 | 1380 |
| Aider Polyglot | — | 49.3% |
| WeirdML | — | 42.6% |
Reasoning Granite 4.2 3b leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 25.0 (#136), Grok-3 mini: 13.8 (#323)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1308 | 1374 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 0.4% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 61.3% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 16.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 140.35 |
Math Not comparable
Granite 4.2 3b: —, Grok-3 mini: 40.3 (#78)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 77.8% |
| Omni-MATH | — | 31.8% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1386 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 90.9% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 5.9% |
Knowledge Grok-3 mini leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 35.6 (#169), Grok-3 mini: 46.3 (#75)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1313 | 1395 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 76.3% |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 79.9% |
| Confabulations | — | 10.8% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 67.5% |
Multilingual Grok-3 mini leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 42.4 (#193), Grok-3 mini: 48.3 (#141)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1268 | 1352 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1268 | 1387 |
| LMArena Russian | 1249 | 1352 |
| LMArena French | — | 1357 |
| LMArena German | — | 1350 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1343 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1336 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1379 |
Instruction Following Grok-3 mini leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 67.2 (#195), Grok-3 mini: 78.7 (#8)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1271 | 1356 |
| IFEval | — | 95.1% |
Long Context Grok-3 mini leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 39.3 (#179), Grok-3 mini: 41.0 (#142)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1293 | 1372 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
Writing & Preference Grok-3 mini leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 47.9 (#202), Grok-3 mini: 52.7 (#163)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1295 | 1370 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1215 | 1342 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1293 | 1355 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 73.5% |
| WildBench | — | 65.1% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.2 3b better than Grok-3 mini?
Grok-3 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.0 to 39.0 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 4.2 3b or Grok-3 mini better for coding?
Grok-3 mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 39.4 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 3b and Grok-3 mini share?
11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 3b has 11 scored results on Noometry and Grok-3 mini has 35.