# Granite 4.2 30B vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Granite 4.2 30B and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4
- Last updated: September 10, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 7
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Pick Granite 4.2 30B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Granite 4.2 30B leads overall 50 to 21.01.
- The clearest category separation is in reasoning, where the averages are 54.7 for Granite 4.2 30B and 54.8 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is τ³-bench results in Agentic, with scores of 62.0% and 9.5%.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Granite 4.2 30B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | IBM | NVIDIA |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 128K | 1M |
| Overall Score | null | 21.01 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 14 | 13 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.00 / $0.00 | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 30B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 26.1 (Estimated · #146/152)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 29.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| τ³-bench results | 62.0% | 9.5% | Granite 4.2 30B |
| BFCL v4 | 61.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | Coming soon | 23.5% | Coming soon |
| PinchBench | Coming soon | 83.4% | Coming soon |
| BrowseComp | Coming soon | 36.8% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 30B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 30.2 (Estimated · #137/151)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE Multilingual | 41.9% | 36.5% | Granite 4.2 30B |
| SWE-bench Pro | 33.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Verified | 57% | 52.8% | Granite 4.2 30B |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 29.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 75.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SciCode | 38.8% | 31.4% | Granite 4.2 30B |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | Coming soon | 23.5% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 30B public-lane score: 54.7 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 54.8 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)

### Knowledge

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 30B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 30.2 (Estimated · #176/183)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 66.4% | 75.6% | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 |
| MMLU-Pro | 77.6% | 81.6% | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 |
| GPQA-D | Coming soon | 75.6% | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | Coming soon | 10.5% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 30B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 72.6 (#64/123)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 77.2% | 72.9% | Granite 4.2 30B |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 30B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME 2025 | 89.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2025 | 89.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Granite 4.2 30B or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4?

Granite 4.2 30B is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Granite 4.2 30B and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4?

The widest category gap is in reasoning, where the averages are 54.7 for Granite 4.2 30B and 54.8 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4.

### How many benchmarks does Granite 4.2 30B cover on BenchLM?

Granite 4.2 30B currently has 14 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 cover on BenchLM?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 currently has 13 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Granite 4.2 30B vs Granite 4.2 8B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-granite-4-2-8b)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 vs Granite 4.2 8B](/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)
- [Granite 4.2 30B vs Granite 4.2 3B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-granite-4-2-3b)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 vs Granite 4.2 3B](/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)

## Explore More

- [Granite 4.2 30B profile](/models/granite-4-2-30b)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 profile](/models/nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)