# Granite 4.2 3b vs Mistral Large 3

> Granite 4.2 3b and Mistral Large 3 score almost the same on the Noometry Index (39.4 vs 39.1), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-mistral-large-3
- 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 3 categories and Mistral Large 3 in 4 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Mistral Large 3 leads 60.0 to 47.2.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.2 3b | Mistral Large 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 39.4 | 39.1 |
| Rank | 169 | 176 |
| Context | — | 262K |
| Input $/M | — | $0.25 |
| Output $/M | — | $0.75 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Granite 4.2 3b: 40.0 (#151)
- Mistral Large 3: 34.4 (#237)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Mistral Large 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1361 | 1448 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1230 |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.2 3b: 26.0 (#138)
- Mistral Large 3: 15.2 (#319)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Mistral Large 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1306 | 1429 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 50.9% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 7.5% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 23% |

## Math

- Granite 4.2 3b: —
- Mistral Large 3: 38.7 (#129)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Mistral Large 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | — | 1414 |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.2 3b: 36.3 (#171)
- Mistral Large 3: 36.0 (#177)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Mistral Large 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1315 | 1421 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 14.5% |

## Multimodal

- Granite 4.2 3b: —
- Mistral Large 3: 38.2 (#66)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Mistral Large 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1221 |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.2 3b: 42.1 (#198)
- Mistral Large 3: 52.5 (#84)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Mistral Large 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1268 | 1413 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1269 | 1447 |
| LMArena Russian | 1249 | 1411 |
| LMArena French | — | 1455 |
| LMArena German | — | 1437 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1394 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1384 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1440 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.2 3b: 67.1 (#200)
- Mistral Large 3: 74.0 (#108)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Mistral Large 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1273 | 1403 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.2 3b: 39.2 (#185)
- Mistral Large 3: 43.1 (#105)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Mistral Large 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1291 | 1413 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.2 3b: 47.2 (#212)
- Mistral Large 3: 60.0 (#101)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Mistral Large 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1293 | 1428 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1205 | 1386 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1290 | 1429 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1412 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.2 3b better than Mistral Large 3?

Granite 4.2 3b and Mistral Large 3 score almost the same on the Noometry Index (39.4 vs 39.1), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

### Is Granite 4.2 3b or Mistral Large 3 better for coding?

Granite 4.2 3b scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.0 versus 34.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 3b and Mistral Large 3 share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 3b has 11 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Large 3 has 24.