# Granite 3.0 8b Instruct vs Grok 4.5

> Grok 4.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 55.0 to 31.1 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-3-0-8b-instruct-vs-grok-4-5
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 12

## Summary

- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct scores higher in 0 categories and Grok 4.5 in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.5 leads 56.0 to 20.0.
- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Grok 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | xAI |
| Noometry Index | 31.1 | 55.0 |
| Rank | 266 | 22 |
| Context | — | 500K |
| Input $/M | — | $2 |
| Output $/M | — | $6 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.1 (#297)
- Grok 4.5: 51.7 (#34)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Grok 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1113 | 1473 |
| DeepSWE | — | 53.8% |
| FrontierCode | — | 42.4% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1552 |
| SciCode | — | 54.1% |
| WeirdML | — | 46.4% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 29.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 35.4% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 1,309 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —
- Grok 4.5: 44.4 (#15)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Grok 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | — | 56.2% |
| τ²-bench Banking | — | 47.9% |
| PostTrainBench | — | 23.4% |
| GBAEval | — | 65.4% |
| GDP.pdf | — | 14% |
| LMArena Search | — | 1213 |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 3,887 |

## Reasoning

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 20.0 (#227)
- Grok 4.5: 56.0 (#23)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Grok 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1092 | 1462 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 52.6% |
| SimpleBench | — | 70% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 83.5% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 79.9% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 87.2% |
| CritPt | — | 15.4% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 36% |
| DTBench | — | 96.5% |
| LMCA | — | 45.2% |
| Surface Evolver Bench | — | 74.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 154.02 |

## Math

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 30.3 (#211)
- Grok 4.5: 60.7 (#29)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Grok 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1143 | 1457 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 57.2% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 24.4% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 97.8% |
| ProofBench | — | 31% |

## Knowledge

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.1 (#233)
- Grok 4.5: 62.3 (#21)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Grok 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1087 | 1466 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 93.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 48.3% |

## Multimodal

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —
- Grok 4.5: 37.8 (#63)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Grok 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1287 |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | — | 27.3% |
| Furniture Assembly | — | 22.5% |
| LMArena Document | — | 1452 |

## Multilingual

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 27.4 (#271)
- Grok 4.5: 54.5 (#43)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Grok 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1037 | 1439 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1063 | 1497 |
| LMArena Russian | 1060 | 1447 |
| LMArena French | — | 1458 |
| LMArena German | — | 1448 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1425 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1402 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1452 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 56.2 (#271)
- Grok 4.5: 76.3 (#45)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Grok 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1088 | 1446 |

## Long Context

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 34.0 (#247)
- Grok 4.5: 44.8 (#54)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Grok 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1122 | 1463 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 31.2 (#280)
- Grok 4.5: 65.9 (#40)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Grok 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1096 | 1448 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1071 | 1442 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1063 | 1457 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1579 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct better than Grok 4.5?

Grok 4.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 55.0 to 31.1 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct or Grok 4.5 better for coding?

Grok 4.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 51.7 versus 29.1 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 3.0 8b Instruct and Grok 4.5 share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has 14 scored results on Noometry and Grok 4.5 has 52.