Model comparison
Granite 4.2 3b vs Magistral Medium
Granite 4.2 3b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 34.8 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 3b scores higher in 6 categories and Magistral Medium in 1 category; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Granite 4.2 3b leads 25.0 to 8.7.
Side by side
| Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Medium | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 39.0 | 34.8 |
| Released | — | 2025-03-17 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | — | 128K |
| Max output | — | 16K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $2 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $5 |
| Results tracked | 11 | 22 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Granite 4.2 3b: 39.4 (#146), Magistral Medium: 38.6 (#161)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1363 | 1319 |
| SciCode | — | 39.2% |
Reasoning Granite 4.2 3b leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 25.0 (#136), Magistral Medium: 8.7 (#342)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1308 | 1267 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 0% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 16.2% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 6.1% |
| CritPt | — | 0.3% |
Math Not comparable
Granite 4.2 3b: —, Magistral Medium: 32.4 (#187)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | — | 1249 |
Knowledge Granite 4.2 3b leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 35.6 (#169), Magistral Medium: 32.9 (#199)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1313 | 1222 |
Multilingual Granite 4.2 3b leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 42.4 (#193), Magistral Medium: 39.8 (#219)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1268 | 1232 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1268 | 1225 |
| LMArena Russian | 1249 | 1224 |
| LMArena French | — | 1268 |
| LMArena German | — | 1248 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1176 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1125 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1269 |
Instruction Following Too close to call
Granite 4.2 3b: 67.2 (#195), Magistral Medium: 66.2 (#207)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1271 | 1254 |
Long Context Too close to call
Granite 4.2 3b: 39.3 (#179), Magistral Medium: 39.3 (#178)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1293 | 1295 |
Writing & Preference Granite 4.2 3b leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 47.9 (#202), Magistral Medium: 46.5 (#214)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Magistral Medium |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1295 | 1255 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1215 | 1245 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1293 | 1275 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.2 3b better than Magistral Medium?
Granite 4.2 3b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 34.8 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 4.2 3b or Magistral Medium better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (39.4 vs 38.6); test both on your own repository before choosing.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 3b and Magistral Medium share?
11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 3b has 11 scored results on Noometry and Magistral Medium has 22.