# Granite 4.2 3b vs Magistral Small

> Granite 4.2 3b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 29.9 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-magistral-small
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 0

## Summary

- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Granite 4.2 3b leads 25.0 to 6.9.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 39.0 | 29.9 |
| Rank | 163 | 289 |
| Context | — | 128K |
| Input $/M | — | $0.50 |
| Output $/M | — | $1.50 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Granite 4.2 3b: 39.4 (#146)
- Magistral Small: 37.8 (#172)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 35.2% |
| LMArena Coding | 1363 | — |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.2 3b: 25.0 (#136)
- Magistral Small: 6.9 (#345)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 0% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 6.3% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 5% |
| CritPt | — | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1308 | — |
| DTBench | — | 61.3% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 133.19 |

## Math

- Granite 4.2 3b: —
- Magistral Small: 24.9 (#253)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 30% |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.2 3b: 35.6 (#169)
- Magistral Small: 30.9 (#215)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 56.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1313 | — |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.2 3b: 42.4 (#193)
- Magistral Small: —

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1268 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1268 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1249 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.2 3b: 67.2 (#195)
- Magistral Small: —

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1271 | — |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.2 3b: 39.3 (#179)
- Magistral Small: —

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1293 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.2 3b: 47.9 (#202)
- Magistral Small: —

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1295 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1215 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1293 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.2 3b better than Magistral Small?

Granite 4.2 3b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 29.9 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Granite 4.2 3b or Magistral Small better for coding?

Granite 4.2 3b scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.4 versus 37.8 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 3b and Magistral Small share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 3b has 11 scored results on Noometry and Magistral Small has 10.