DeepSeek V3 0324 vs Granite 4.2 3B

Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V3 0324 by DeepSeek or Granite 4.2 3B by IBM? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.

Trade-off

DeepSeekDeepSeek V3 0324On the open-weights frontier

Intelligence: 9.70
Total cost: $19.9

IBMGranite 4.2 3BOn the open-weights frontier

Intelligence: 9.10
Total cost: $14.9

Verdict

Depends on your budget

DeepSeek V3 0324 scores 0.6 points higher (9.7 vs 9.1) but costs 1.3× as much to run the benchmark ($19.9 vs $14.9; both budget class). Pick DeepSeek V3 0324 when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Granite 4.2 3B.

Metric	DeepSeek V3 0324	Granite 4.2 3B	Difference
Intelligence (higher is better)	9.7	9.1	−6.2% Granite 4.2 3B is 6.2% less intelligent
Total AA cost (lower is better)	$19.87	$14.91	−25.0% Granite 4.2 3B is 25.0% cheaper
End-to-end time (lower is better)	4.38s	49.98s	+1041.1% Granite 4.2 3B is 1041.1% slower
Price per 1M tokens (in / out)	$0.24 / $0.90	$0.03 / $0.12
Input modalities	Text	Text

Granite 4.2 3B vs DeepSeek V3 0324: 6.2% less intelligence, 25.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 1041.1% slower end-to-end.

Open this matchup in the interactive picker DeepSeek V3 0324: what beats it Granite 4.2 3B: what beats it

Today's Pareto frontier

Against the frontier

DeepSeek V3 0324 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Granite 4.2 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.

DeepSeek V3 0324Granite 4.2 3BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model

Matchup

Compare something else

Agents: Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v3-0324/granite-4-2-3b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v3-0324/granite-4-2-3b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill