# Granite 4.2 8B vs MiniMax M3

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Granite 4.2 8B and MiniMax M3 across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-minimax-m3
- Last updated: October 15, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 4
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.8

## Quick Verdict

MiniMax M3 leads by point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence. Choose using the category evidence and your own workload tests.

## Summary

- MiniMax M3 has the higher overall point estimate 54.95 to 33.4. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.
- The clearest category separation is in reasoning, where the averages are 56.8 for Granite 4.2 8B and 82.9 for MiniMax M3.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench 2.1 in Agentic, with scores of 20.6% and 66.0%.
- Granite 4.2 8B is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.
- MiniMax M3 also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniMax M3 |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | IBM | MiniMax |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Non-Reasoning |
| Context | 128K | 1M |
| Overall Score | 33.4 | 54.95 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 14 | 28 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.00 / $0.00 | $0.30 / $1.20 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Directional only
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 15.7 (Estimated · #113/127)
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 39.5 (Supported · #68/127)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniMax M3 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 20.6% | 66.0% | MiniMax M3 |
| τ³-bench results | 58.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BFCL v4 | 52.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BrowseComp | Coming soon | 83.5% | Coming soon |
| OSWorld-Verified | Coming soon | 70.1% | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | Coming soon | 74.2% | Coming soon |
| Claw-Eval | Coming soon | 74.5% | Coming soon |
| BankerToolBench | Coming soon | 76.1% | Coming soon |
| ResearchClawBench | Coming soon | 19.8% | Coming soon |
| OSWorld 2.0 | Coming soon | 4.6% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | Coming soon | 53.6% | Coming soon |
| MazeBench | Coming soon | 0% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Directional only
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 17.2 (Estimated · #125/150)
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 36.4 (Supported · #74/150)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniMax M3 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 47.7% | 80.5% | MiniMax M3 |
| SWE-bench Pro | 19.1% | 59% | MiniMax M3 |
| SWE Multilingual | 30.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 20.6% | 66.0% | MiniMax M3 |
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 73.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SciCode | 36.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| NL2Repo | Coming soon | 42.1% | Coming soon |
| VIBE V2 | Coming soon | 50.1% | Coming soon |
| SVG-Bench | Coming soon | 63.7% | Coming soon |
| KernelBench Hard | Coming soon | 28.8% | Coming soon |
| OpenHarmony Bench | Coming soon | 48.4% | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | Coming soon | 82.2% | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | Coming soon | 75.0% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 56.8 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 82.9 (#5/28)

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 61.5 (#43/54)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniMax M3 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| OfficeQA Pro | Coming soon | 45.1% | Coming soon |
| OmniDocBench 1.5 | Coming soon | 91.6% | Coming soon |
| MMMU-Pro | Coming soon | 78.1% | Coming soon |
| VideoMMMU | Coming soon | 84.6% | Coming soon |
| Video-MME (with subtitle) | Coming soon | 85.4% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: MiniMax M3
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 30.6 (Supported · #154/184)
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 49.6 (Supported · #82/184)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniMax M3 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 64.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro | 74.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | Coming soon | 92.7% | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | Coming soon | 84.2% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Directional only
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 86.5 (#41/146)
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 93.8 (#5/146)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniMax M3 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 79.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniMax M3 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME 2025 | 86.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2025 | 78.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| USAMO 2026 | Coming soon | 85.7% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Granite 4.2 8B or MiniMax M3?

MiniMax M3 has the higher overall point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.

### Where is the biggest gap between Granite 4.2 8B and MiniMax M3?

The widest category gap is in reasoning, where the averages are 56.8 for Granite 4.2 8B and 82.9 for MiniMax M3.

### How many benchmarks does Granite 4.2 8B cover on BenchLM?

Granite 4.2 8B currently has 14 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does MiniMax M3 cover on BenchLM?

MiniMax M3 currently has 28 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Granite 4.2 8B vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-granite-4-2-8b)
- [MiniMax M3 vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-minimax-m3)
- [Granite 4.2 8B vs Granite 4.2 3B](/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-granite-4-2-8b)
- [MiniMax M3 vs Granite 4.2 3B](/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-minimax-m3)

## Explore More

- [Granite 4.2 8B profile](/models/granite-4-2-8b)
- [MiniMax M3 profile](/models/minimax-m3)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)