# Granite 4.2 8B vs Step 3

> Granite 4.2 8B and Step 3 score almost the same on the Noometry Index (40.5 vs 40.5), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-step-3
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 11

## Summary

- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 8B scores higher in 2 categories and Step 3 in 5 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Step 3 leads 54.3 to 49.6.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.2 8B | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | StepFun |
| Noometry Index | 40.5 | 40.5 |
| Rank | 148 | 149 |
| Context | 131K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.06 | — |
| Output $/M | $0.25 | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137)
- Step 3: 40.1 (#147)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1380 | 1367 |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131)
- Step 3: 28.4 (#105)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1329 | 1355 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 62.3% |

## Math

- Granite 4.2 8B: —
- Step 3: 37.6 (#148)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | — | 1366 |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145)
- Step 3: 36.8 (#164)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1384 | 1333 |

## Multimodal

- Granite 4.2 8B: —
- Step 3: 35.5 (#86)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1177 |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178)
- Step 3: 46.3 (#159)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1302 | 1327 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1366 | 1397 |
| LMArena Russian | 1285 | 1331 |
| LMArena German | — | 1371 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1269 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1371 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184)
- Step 3: 70.4 (#164)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1301 | 1332 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159)
- Step 3: 40.3 (#157)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1324 | 1326 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189)
- Step 3: 54.3 (#151)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1320 | 1350 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1236 | 1321 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1301 | 1341 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Step 3?

Granite 4.2 8B and Step 3 score almost the same on the Noometry Index (40.5 vs 40.5), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

### Is Granite 4.2 8B or Step 3 better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (40.5 vs 40.1); test both on your own repository before choosing.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Step 3 share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Step 3 has 17.