# Granite 4.0 Micro vs Grok-3 mini

> Grok-3 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.2 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-0-micro-vs-grok-3-mini
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 7

## Summary

- They share 7 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.0 Micro scores higher in 1 category and Grok-3 mini in 4 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Grok-3 mini leads 46.4 to 9.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 2.8% for Granite 4.0 Micro and 77.8% for Grok-3 mini.
- Granite 4.0 Micro has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | xAI |
| Noometry Index | 29.0 | 41.2 |
| Rank | 318 | 141 |
| Context | 131K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.017 | — |
| Output $/M | $0.11 | — |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Grok-3 mini: 40.8 (#131)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| Aider Polyglot | — | 49.3% |
| WeirdML | — | 42.6% |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1379 |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 19.2 (#265)
- Grok-3 mini: 13.6 (#334)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 0.4% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 61.3% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 16.5% |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1375 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 140.35 |

## Math

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 12.0 (#307)
- Grok-3 mini: 42.1 (#85)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 2.8% | 77.8% |
| Omni-MATH | 20.9% | 31.8% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1386 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 90.9% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 5.9% |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#304)
- Grok-3 mini: 46.4 (#81)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 28.3% | 76.3% |
| MMLU-Pro | 39.5% | 79.9% |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.7% | 67.5% |
| Confabulations | — | 10.8% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1395 |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Grok-3 mini: 48.1 (#145)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1352 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1387 |
| LMArena French | — | 1357 |
| LMArena German | — | 1349 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1342 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1335 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1353 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1381 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 69.9 (#169)
- Grok-3 mini: 78.5 (#9)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 84.9% | 95.1% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1357 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Grok-3 mini: 41.0 (#147)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1372 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#216)
- Grok-3 mini: 52.5 (#169)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| WildBench | 67% | 65.1% |
| LMArena Text | — | 1370 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1342 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 73.5% |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1355 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than Grok-3 mini?

Grok-3 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.2 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 Micro and Grok-3 mini share?

7 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 Micro has 8 scored results on Noometry and Grok-3 mini has 35.