Model comparison

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Granite 3.0 8b Instruct

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 5.5 Anthropic

68.6

Rank #3 Confirmed

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct IBM

31.6

Rank #270 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher in 8 categories and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Opus 5.5 leads 80.2 to 20.9.
  • Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Opus 5.5 and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct specifications
Claude Opus 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
ProviderAnthropicIBM
Noometry Index68.631.6
Released2026-09-22—
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M—
Max output128K—
Input $ / M tokens$4—
Output $ / M tokens$20—
Results tracked4414

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Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 71.9 (#3), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.7 (#301)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Coding15471112
FrontierCode54.6%—
CursorBench57.8%—
LMArena WebDev1813—
FrontierSWE62.3%—
SciCode66.9%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—29.3%
MirrorCode77.4%—
BigCodeBench Complete—35.4%
ALE-Bench2,147—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 45.3 (#15), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
APEX-Agents73.5%—
GDP.pdf30.6%—
Vending-Bench 29,235—

Reasoning Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 80.2 (#3), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 20.9 (#230)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Hard Prompts15351092
ARC-AGI-293.3%—
NYT Connections (extended)88.5%—
ARC-AGI-198.5%—
CritPt31.7%—
EBR-Bench71.4%—
Mystery Game Puzzles71%—
DTBench98.9%—
LMCA68.2%—
Epoch Capabilities Index167.33—

Math Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 91.8 (#3), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 32.8 (#210)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Math15061143
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)91.2%—
FrontierMath Tier 495%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025100%—
ProofBench100%—
FrontierMath Erdős2.9%—

Knowledge Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 66.4 (#10), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.6 (#236)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Expert15471087
GPQA Diamond90.6%—
SimpleQA Verified72.2%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 57.8 (#1), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Vision1321—
Blueprint-Bench 251.2%—
Furniture Assembly83.3%—

Multilingual Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 59.1 (#2), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 27.2 (#276)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Non-English15071037
LMArena Chinese15881063
LMArena Russian15201060
LMArena French1514—
LMArena Spanish1507—

Instruction Following Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 80.0 (#3), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 56.0 (#276)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following15371088

Long Context Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 47.1 (#19), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 34.0 (#252)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Longer Query15321122

Writing & Preference Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 78.2 (#3), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#285)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Text15151096
LMArena Creative Writing15331071
LMArena Multi-Turn14991063
EQ-Bench Creative Writing2050—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 5.5 better than Granite 3.0 8b Instruct?

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Granite 3.0 8b Instruct better for coding?

Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 71.9 versus 29.7 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 5.5 and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 5.5 has 44 scored results on Noometry and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has 14.

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