# Granite 4.2 3B vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Granite 4.2 3B 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-4-2-3b-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4
- Last updated: September 10, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 5
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Pick Granite 4.2 3B 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 3B leads overall 43 to 21.01.
- The clearest category separation is in reasoning, where the averages are 37.7 for Granite 4.2 3B 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 45.8% and 9.5%.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Granite 4.2 3B | 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 | 9 | 13 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.00 / $0.00 | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 26.1 (Estimated · #146/152)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| τ³-bench results | 45.8% | 9.5% | Granite 4.2 3B |
| BFCL v4 | 52.4% | 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 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 30.2 (Estimated · #137/151)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 69.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SciCode | 24.1% | 31.4% | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 |
| SWE-bench Verified | Coming soon | 52.8% | Coming soon |
| SWE Multilingual | Coming soon | 36.5% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | Coming soon | 23.5% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: 37.7 (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 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 30.2 (Estimated · #176/183)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 54.8% | 75.6% | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 |
| MMLU-Pro | 67.8% | 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 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 72.6 (#64/123)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 74.3% | 72.9% | Granite 4.2 3B |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME 2025 | 78.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2025 | 66.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Granite 4.2 3B or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4?

Granite 4.2 3B is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Granite 4.2 3B and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4?

The widest category gap is in reasoning, where the averages are 37.7 for Granite 4.2 3B and 54.8 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4.

### How many benchmarks does Granite 4.2 3B cover on BenchLM?

Granite 4.2 3B currently has 9 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 3B vs Granite 4.2 8B](/compare/granite-4-2-3b-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 3B vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-granite-4-2-3b)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)

## Explore More

- [Granite 4.2 3B profile](/models/granite-4-2-3b)
- [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)