# Granite 3.0 8b Instruct vs Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct

> Granite 3.0 8b Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.6 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-3-0-8b-instruct-vs-phi-3-small-8k-instruct
- 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 6 categories and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct in 2 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Granite 3.0 8b Instruct leads 20.9 to 14.8.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 31.6 | 29.3 |
| Rank | 270 | 314 |
| Context | — | — |
| Input $/M | — | — |
| Output $/M | — | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.7 (#301)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.9 (#318)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1112 | 1101 |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 29.3% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 20.3% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 35.4% | — |

## Reasoning

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 20.9 (#230)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.8 (#323)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1092 | 1100 |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 15.9% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 30.3% |
| Adversarial NLI | — | 58.1% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 79.1% |
| HellaSwag | — | 77% |
| LiveBench | — | 24% |
| WinoGrande | — | 81.5% |

## Math

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 32.8 (#210)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.6 (#248)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1143 | 1151 |
| LiveBench Math | — | 17.6% |

## Knowledge

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.6 (#236)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 29.1 (#240)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1087 | 1067 |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 90.7% |
| MMLU | — | 75.7% |
| OpenBookQA | — | 88% |
| TriviaQA | — | 58.1% |

## Multilingual

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 27.2 (#276)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#272)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1037 | 1058 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1063 | 1061 |
| LMArena Russian | 1060 | 1111 |
| LMArena French | — | 1135 |
| LMArena German | — | 1080 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 966 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 894 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1111 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 56.0 (#276)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 51.9 (#292)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1088 | 1087 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 47.2% |

## Long Context

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 34.0 (#252)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#267)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1122 | 1088 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#285)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.1 (#284)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1096 | 1110 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1071 | 1083 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1063 | 1068 |
| LiveBench Language | — | 12.9% |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct better than Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct?

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.6 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct or Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better for coding?

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 29.7 versus 27.9 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 3.0 8b Instruct and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has 14 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32.