# Granite 4.2 3B vs Nemotron 3 Ultra

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Granite 4.2 3B and Nemotron 3 Ultra across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-nemotron-3-ultra
- Last updated: September 10, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 6
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Pick Granite 4.2 3B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Nemotron 3 Ultra 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 40.51.
- The clearest category separation is in reasoning, where the averages are 37.7 for Granite 4.2 3B and 48.7 for Nemotron 3 Ultra.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is GPQA in Knowledge, with scores of 54.8% and 87%.
- Nemotron 3 Ultra also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Granite 4.2 3B | Nemotron 3 Ultra |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | IBM | NVIDIA |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 128K | 1M |
| Overall Score | null | 40.51 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 9 | 24 |
| 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 Ultra public-lane score: 27 (Supported · #143/152)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Nemotron 3 Ultra | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| τ³-bench results | 45.8% | 70.9% | Nemotron 3 Ultra |
| BFCL v4 | 52.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | Coming soon | 56.4% | Coming soon |
| PinchBench | Coming soon | 90.0% | Coming soon |
| BrowseComp | Coming soon | 44.4% | Coming soon |
| HLE w/ tools | Coming soon | 37.4% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | Coming soon | 50.9% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3 Ultra public-lane score: 26.6 (Supported · #145/151)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Nemotron 3 Ultra | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 69.7% | 89.0% | Nemotron 3 Ultra |
| SciCode | 24.1% | 44.6% | Nemotron 3 Ultra |
| SWE-bench Verified | Coming soon | 71.9% | Coming soon |
| SWE Multilingual | Coming soon | 67.7% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | Coming soon | 56.4% | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | Coming soon | 86.0% | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | Coming soon | 69.0% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: 37.7 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Nemotron 3 Ultra public-lane score: 48.7 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Nemotron 3 Ultra | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| CritPt | Coming soon | 3.1% | Coming soon |
| LongBench v2 | Coming soon | 61.9% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3 Ultra public-lane score: 44.7 (Estimated · #111/183)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Nemotron 3 Ultra | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 54.8% | 87% | Nemotron 3 Ultra |
| MMLU-Pro | 67.8% | 86.8% | Nemotron 3 Ultra |
| GPQA-D | Coming soon | 87.0% | Coming soon |
| HLE | Coming soon | 26.7% | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | Coming soon | 26.7% | Coming soon |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | Coming soon | 86.1% | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | Coming soon | 85.8% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3 Ultra public-lane score: 88.8 (#28/123)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Nemotron 3 Ultra | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 74.3% | 81.7% | Nemotron 3 Ultra |

### Multilingual

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3 Ultra public-lane score: 47.4 (#7/12)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Nemotron 3 Ultra | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMLU-ProX | Coming soon | 83% | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3 Ultra public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Nemotron 3 Ultra | 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 Ultra?

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

### Where is the biggest gap between Granite 4.2 3B and Nemotron 3 Ultra?

The widest category gap is in reasoning, where the averages are 37.7 for Granite 4.2 3B and 48.7 for Nemotron 3 Ultra.

### 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 Ultra cover on BenchLM?

Nemotron 3 Ultra currently has 24 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 Ultra vs Granite 4.2 8B](/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-nemotron-3-ultra)
- [Granite 4.2 3B vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-granite-4-2-3b)
- [Nemotron 3 Ultra vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-nemotron-3-ultra)

## Explore More

- [Granite 4.2 3B profile](/models/granite-4-2-3b)
- [Nemotron 3 Ultra profile](/models/nemotron-3-ultra)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)