# Granite 3.0 8b Instruct vs Qwen2.5 7B Instruct

> Granite 3.0 8b Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.6 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-3-0-8b-instruct-vs-qwen2-5-7b-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 2

## Summary

- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct in 3 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Granite 3.0 8b Instruct leads 32.8 to 12.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is BigCodeBench Complete: 35.4% for Granite 3.0 8b Instruct and 46.1% for Qwen2.5 7B Instruct.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.6 | 29.0 |
| Rank | 270 | 320 |
| Context | — | 131K |
| Input $/M | — | $0.17 |
| Output $/M | — | $0.70 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.7 (#301)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 36.5 (#208)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 29.3% | 37.6% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 35.4% | 46.1% |
| LMArena Coding | 1112 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 23.8 (#124)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| BALROG | — | 7.8% |

## Reasoning

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 20.9 (#230)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 14.8 (#322)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1092 | — |
| DTBench | — | 47.7% |
| LMCA | — | 6.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 118.51 |

## Math

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 32.8 (#210)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 12.6 (#306)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 2.5% |
| Omni-MATH | — | 29.4% |
| LMArena Math | 1143 | — |

## Knowledge

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.6 (#236)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 17.0 (#286)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 35.5% |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 53.9% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 34.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1087 | — |
| MMLU | — | 72.9% |

## Multilingual

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 27.2 (#276)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1037 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1063 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1060 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 56.0 (#276)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 63.2 (#231)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | — | 74.1% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1088 | — |

## Long Context

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 34.0 (#252)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1122 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#285)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 48.8 (#195)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1096 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1071 | — |
| WildBench | — | 73.1% |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1063 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct better than Qwen2.5 7B Instruct?

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.6 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct or Qwen2.5 7B Instruct better for coding?

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 36.5 versus 29.7 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 3.0 8b Instruct and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has 14 scored results on Noometry and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct has 15.