# Granite 4.1 8b vs Grok-3 mini

> Grok-3 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.2 to 37.4 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-1-8b-vs-grok-3-mini
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 12

## Summary

- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.1 8b scores higher in 1 category and Grok-3 mini in 7 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Granite 4.1 8b leads 25.7 to 13.6.
- Granite 4.1 8b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.1 8b | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | xAI |
| Noometry Index | 37.4 | 41.2 |
| Rank | 205 | 141 |
| Context | — | — |
| Input $/M | — | — |
| Output $/M | — | — |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Granite 4.1 8b: 30.1 (#297)
- Grok-3 mini: 40.8 (#131)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.1 8b | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1312 | 1379 |
| Aider Polyglot | — | 49.3% |
| LMArena WebDev | 1192 | — |
| WeirdML | — | 42.6% |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.1 8b: 25.7 (#143)
- Grok-3 mini: 13.6 (#334)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.1 8b | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1293 | 1375 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 0.4% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 61.3% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 16.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 140.35 |

## Math

- Granite 4.1 8b: 36.4 (#166)
- Grok-3 mini: 42.1 (#85)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.1 8b | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1312 | 1386 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 77.8% |
| Omni-MATH | — | 31.8% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 90.9% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 5.9% |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.1 8b: 36.1 (#174)
- Grok-3 mini: 46.4 (#81)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.1 8b | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1309 | 1395 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 76.3% |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 79.9% |
| Confabulations | — | 10.8% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 67.5% |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.1 8b: 41.7 (#204)
- Grok-3 mini: 48.1 (#145)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.1 8b | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1261 | 1352 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1337 | 1387 |
| LMArena Russian | 1240 | 1353 |
| LMArena French | — | 1357 |
| LMArena German | — | 1349 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1342 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1335 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1381 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.1 8b: 66.9 (#203)
- Grok-3 mini: 78.5 (#9)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.1 8b | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1269 | 1357 |
| IFEval | — | 95.1% |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.1 8b: 38.7 (#193)
- Grok-3 mini: 41.0 (#147)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.1 8b | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1275 | 1372 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.1 8b: 48.1 (#204)
- Grok-3 mini: 52.5 (#169)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.1 8b | Grok-3 mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1290 | 1370 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1251 | 1342 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1268 | 1355 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 73.5% |
| WildBench | — | 65.1% |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.1 8b better than Grok-3 mini?

Grok-3 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.2 to 37.4 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Granite 4.1 8b or Grok-3 mini better for coding?

Grok-3 mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.8 versus 30.1 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.1 8b and Grok-3 mini share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.1 8b has 13 scored results on Noometry and Grok-3 mini has 35.