# Granite 3.0 8b Instruct vs o3-mini

> o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-3-0-8b-instruct-vs-o3-mini
- 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 3 categories and o3-mini in 5 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where o3-mini leads 50.3 to 31.1.
- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | OpenAI |
| Noometry Index | 31.6 | 36.7 |
| Rank | 270 | 212 |
| Context | — | 200K |
| Input $/M | — | $1.10 |
| Output $/M | — | $4.40 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.7 (#301)
- o3-mini: 40.8 (#132)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1112 | 1378 |
| Aider Polyglot | — | 60.4% |
| SciCode | — | 39.8% |
| GSO | — | 1.3% |
| WeirdML | — | 43.7% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 29.3% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 82.7% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 35.4% | — |
| CadEval | — | 54% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —
- o3-mini: 29.6 (#84)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Cybench | — | 22.5% |

## Reasoning

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 20.9 (#230)
- o3-mini: 16.3 (#305)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1092 | 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

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 32.8 (#210)
- o3-mini: 28.1 (#244)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1143 | 1396 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.6% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 0% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 76.9% |
| LiveBench Math | — | 77.3% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 96.5% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 12.4% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |

## Knowledge

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.6 (#236)
- o3-mini: 38.3 (#146)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1087 | 1364 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 77% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 15.3% |
| Confabulations | — | 17.9% |

## Multilingual

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 27.2 (#276)
- o3-mini: 45.7 (#164)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1037 | 1319 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1063 | 1379 |
| LMArena Russian | 1060 | 1304 |
| LMArena French | — | 1334 |
| LMArena German | — | 1303 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1286 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1314 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1321 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 56.0 (#276)
- o3-mini: 75.1 (#72)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1088 | 1337 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 84.4% |

## Long Context

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 34.0 (#252)
- o3-mini: 33.8 (#256)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1122 | 1343 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 50% |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#285)
- o3-mini: 50.3 (#182)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1096 | 1337 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1071 | 1286 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1063 | 1320 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 61.7% |
| LiveBench Language | — | 50.7% |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct better than o3-mini?

o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct or o3-mini better for coding?

o3-mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.8 versus 29.7 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 3.0 8b Instruct and o3-mini share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has 14 scored results on Noometry and o3-mini has 51.