Model comparison

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Granite 4.2 3b

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 39.4 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 5.5 Anthropic

68.6

Rank #3 Confirmed

Granite 4.2 3b IBM

39.4

Rank #169 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher in 7 categories and Granite 4.2 3b in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Opus 5.5 leads 80.2 to 26.0.
  • Granite 4.2 3b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Opus 5.5 and Granite 4.2 3b specifications
Claude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 3b
ProviderAnthropicIBM
Noometry Index68.639.4
Released2026-09-22—
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M—
Max output128K—
Input $ / M tokens$4—
Output $ / M tokens$20—
Results tracked4411

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Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 71.9 (#3), Granite 4.2 3b: 40.0 (#151)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 3b
LMArena Coding15471361
FrontierCode54.6%—
CursorBench57.8%—
LMArena WebDev1813—
FrontierSWE62.3%—
SciCode66.9%—
MirrorCode77.4%—
ALE-Bench2,147—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 45.3 (#15), Granite 4.2 3b: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 3b
APEX-Agents73.5%—
GDP.pdf30.6%—
Vending-Bench 29,235—

Reasoning Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 80.2 (#3), Granite 4.2 3b: 26.0 (#138)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 3b
LMArena Hard Prompts15351306
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 Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 91.8 (#3), Granite 4.2 3b: —

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 3b
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)91.2%—
FrontierMath Tier 495%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025100%—
ProofBench100%—
LMArena Math1506—
FrontierMath Erdős2.9%—

Knowledge Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 66.4 (#10), Granite 4.2 3b: 36.3 (#171)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 3b
LMArena Expert15471315
GPQA Diamond90.6%—
SimpleQA Verified72.2%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 57.8 (#1), Granite 4.2 3b: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 3b
LMArena Vision1321—
Blueprint-Bench 251.2%—
Furniture Assembly83.3%—

Multilingual Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 59.1 (#2), Granite 4.2 3b: 42.1 (#198)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 3b
LMArena Non-English15071268
LMArena Chinese15881269
LMArena Russian15201249
LMArena French1514—
LMArena Spanish1507—

Instruction Following Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 80.0 (#3), Granite 4.2 3b: 67.1 (#200)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 3b
LMArena Instruction Following15371273

Long Context Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 47.1 (#19), Granite 4.2 3b: 39.2 (#185)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 3b
LMArena Longer Query15321291

Writing & Preference Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 78.2 (#3), Granite 4.2 3b: 47.2 (#212)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Granite 4.2 3b
LMArena Text15151293
LMArena Creative Writing15331205
LMArena Multi-Turn14991290
EQ-Bench Creative Writing2050—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 5.5 better than Granite 4.2 3b?

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 39.4 on the Noometry Index.

Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Granite 4.2 3b better for coding?

Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 71.9 versus 40.0 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 5.5 and Granite 4.2 3b share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 5.5 has 44 scored results on Noometry and Granite 4.2 3b has 11.

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