Granite 4.2 30B vs NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 30B by IBM or NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) by NVIDIA? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Granite 4.2 30B scores 3.8 points higher (12.7 vs 8.9) but costs 1.7× as much to run the benchmark ($111 vs $63.7; both mid-range class). Pick Granite 4.2 30B when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoni….
| Metric | Granite 4.2 30B | NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.7 | 8.9 | −29.9% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 29.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $110.83 | $63.74 | −42.5% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 42.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 63.69s | 10.12s | −84.1% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 84.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.16 / $0.65 | $0.05 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) vs Granite 4.2 30B: 29.9% less intelligence, 42.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 84.1% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Granite 4.2 30B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
- NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) scores 34.50 for $56.4.
Granite 4.2 30BNVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-30b/nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-30b/nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill