Model comparison
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.
Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.
StepFunSummary
- 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.
Side by side
| Granite 4.2 8B | Step 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | StepFun |
| Noometry Index | 40.5 | 40.5 |
| Released | — | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 131K | — |
| Max output | 118K | — |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.06 | — |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.25 | — |
| Results tracked | 11 | 17 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137), Step 3: 40.1 (#147)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1380 | 1367 |
Reasoning Step 3 leads
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 Not comparable
Granite 4.2 8B: —, Step 3: 37.6 (#148)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | — | 1366 |
Knowledge Granite 4.2 8B leads
Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145), Step 3: 36.8 (#164)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1384 | 1333 |
Multimodal Not comparable
Granite 4.2 8B: —, Step 3: 35.5 (#86)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1177 |
Multilingual Step 3 leads
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 Step 3 leads
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 Too close to call
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 Step 3 leads
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 |
Frequently asked questions
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.