# Granite 4.2 30b vs Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)

> Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.5 to 41.4 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-grok-4-20
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 11

## Summary

- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 30b scores higher in 0 categories and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) in 7 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads 52.2 to 26.7.
- Granite 4.2 30b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.2 30b | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | xAI |
| Noometry Index | 41.4 | 48.5 |
| Rank | 126 | 48 |
| Context | — | 1M |
| Input $/M | — | $1.25 |
| Output $/M | — | $2.50 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Granite 4.2 30b: 40.4 (#127)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 41.8 (#104)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1394 | 1458 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1374 |
| WeirdML | — | 52.3% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 1,150 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Granite 4.2 30b: —
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 34.3 (#43)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 57.3% |
| τ²-bench Banking | — | 18% |
| LMArena Search | — | 1189 |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 4,663 |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.2 30b: 26.7 (#114)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.2 (#30)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1375 | 1451 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 65.1% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 75% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 85.4% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 89.5% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 24% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 63.8% |
| DTBench | — | 90.1% |
| LMCA | — | 38.7% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 152.01 |
| ForecastBench | — | 61.4 |

## Math

- Granite 4.2 30b: —
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 48.0 (#54)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 44.9% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 17.1% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 92.2% |
| ProofBench | — | 14% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1455 |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.2 30b: 38.5 (#134)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.8 (#54)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1405 | 1440 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 89.3% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 30.2% |

## Multimodal

- Granite 4.2 30b: —
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 33.2 (#88)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1263 |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | — | 0% |
| LMArena Document | — | 1416 |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.2 30b: 47.4 (#146)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 54.7 (#38)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1340 | 1440 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1415 | 1481 |
| LMArena Russian | 1342 | 1457 |
| LMArena French | — | 1477 |
| LMArena German | — | 1463 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1450 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1417 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1442 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.2 30b: 71.3 (#150)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 75.0 (#79)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1346 | 1420 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.2 30b: 41.4 (#135)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 45.4 (#33)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1359 | 1436 |
| CL-bench | — | 22.2% |
| CL-bench Life | — | 11.9% |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.2 30b: 54.3 (#147)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 65.9 (#42)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1363 | 1451 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1294 | 1439 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1340 | 1456 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1574 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.2 30b better than Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.5 to 41.4 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Granite 4.2 30b or Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) better for coding?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.8 versus 40.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 30b and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 30b has 11 scored results on Noometry and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) has 46.