Model comparison
Granite 4.2 3b vs o3-mini
Granite 4.2 3b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.4 to 36.7 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 2 categories and o3-mini in 5 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Granite 4.2 3b leads 26.0 to 16.3.
- Granite 4.2 3b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Granite 4.2 3b | o3-mini | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | OpenAI |
| Noometry Index | 39.4 | 36.7 |
| Released | — | 2024-12-20 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | — | 200K |
| Max output | — | 100K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $1.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $4.40 |
| Results tracked | 11 | 51 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Granite 4.2 3b: 40.0 (#151), o3-mini: 40.8 (#132)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1361 | 1378 |
| Aider Polyglot | — | 60.4% |
| SciCode | — | 39.8% |
| GSO | — | 1.3% |
| WeirdML | — | 43.7% |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 82.7% |
| CadEval | — | 54% |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Granite 4.2 3b: —, o3-mini: 29.6 (#84)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Cybench | — | 22.5% |
Reasoning Granite 4.2 3b leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 26.0 (#138), o3-mini: 16.3 (#305)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1306 | 1366 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 3% |
| SimpleBench | — | 22.8% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 34.5% |
| CritPt | — | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 17% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 89.6% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 7% |
| DTBench | — | 68.8% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 70.6% |
| LMCA | — | 19% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 140.34 |
| ForecastBench | — | 59.6 |
| LiveBench | — | 75.9% |
Math Not comparable
Granite 4.2 3b: —, o3-mini: 28.1 (#244)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.6% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 0% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 76.9% |
| LiveBench Math | — | 77.3% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1396 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 96.5% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 12.4% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |
Knowledge o3-mini leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 36.3 (#171), o3-mini: 38.3 (#146)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1315 | 1364 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 77% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 15.3% |
| Confabulations | — | 17.9% |
Multilingual o3-mini leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 42.1 (#198), o3-mini: 45.7 (#164)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1268 | 1319 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1269 | 1379 |
| LMArena Russian | 1249 | 1304 |
| LMArena French | — | 1334 |
| LMArena German | — | 1303 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1286 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1314 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1321 |
Instruction Following o3-mini leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 67.1 (#200), o3-mini: 75.1 (#72)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1273 | 1337 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 84.4% |
Long Context Granite 4.2 3b leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 39.2 (#185), o3-mini: 33.8 (#256)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1291 | 1343 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 50% |
Writing & Preference o3-mini leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 47.2 (#212), o3-mini: 50.3 (#182)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1293 | 1337 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1205 | 1286 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1290 | 1320 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 61.7% |
| LiveBench Language | — | 50.7% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.2 3b better than o3-mini?
Granite 4.2 3b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.4 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 4.2 3b or o3-mini better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (40.0 vs 40.8); test both on your own repository before choosing.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 3b and o3-mini share?
11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 3b has 11 scored results on Noometry and o3-mini has 51.