# Granite 4.2 3b vs Llama 3-70B

> Granite 4.2 3b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.4 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-llama-3-70b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 11

## Summary

- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 3b scores higher in 7 categories and Llama 3-70B in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Granite 4.2 3b leads 36.3 to 20.8.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.2 3b | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Meta |
| Noometry Index | 39.4 | 28.8 |
| Rank | 169 | 323 |
| Context | — | — |
| Input $/M | — | — |
| Output $/M | — | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Granite 4.2 3b: 40.0 (#151)
- Llama 3-70B: 35.8 (#218)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1361 | 1206 |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 43.6% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 54.5% |
| HumanEval+ | — | 72% |
| MBPP+ | — | 69% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Granite 4.2 3b: —
- Llama 3-70B: 21.1 (#139)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| Cybench | — | 5% |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.2 3b: 26.0 (#138)
- Llama 3-70B: 18.0 (#288)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1306 | 1195 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 35.1% |
| DTBench | — | 54.2% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 122.93 |
| ForecastBench | — | 57.1 |
| WinoGrande | — | 83.5% |

## Math

- Granite 4.2 3b: —
- Llama 3-70B: 12.8 (#305)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 4.3% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1218 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 22.6% |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.2 3b: 36.3 (#171)
- Llama 3-70B: 20.8 (#277)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1315 | 1149 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 40.6% |
| MMLU | — | 79.3% |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.2 3b: 42.1 (#198)
- Llama 3-70B: 33.6 (#251)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1268 | 1142 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1269 | 1114 |
| LMArena Russian | 1249 | 1159 |
| LMArena French | — | 1232 |
| LMArena German | — | 1169 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1017 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1017 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1241 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.2 3b: 67.1 (#200)
- Llama 3-70B: 62.5 (#238)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1273 | 1194 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.2 3b: 39.2 (#185)
- Llama 3-70B: 35.6 (#240)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1291 | 1174 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.2 3b: 47.2 (#212)
- Llama 3-70B: 42.8 (#231)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1293 | 1221 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1205 | 1210 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1290 | 1223 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.2 3b better than Llama 3-70B?

Granite 4.2 3b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.4 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Granite 4.2 3b or Llama 3-70B better for coding?

Granite 4.2 3b scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.0 versus 35.8 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 3b and Llama 3-70B share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 3b has 11 scored results on Noometry and Llama 3-70B has 31.