Model comparison

DeepSeek-V3 vs Llama 3.2 3B

DeepSeek-V3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.5 to 28.9 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.2 3B costs 3.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when DeepSeek-V3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 16 shared benchmarks.

DeepSeek-V3 DeepSeek

39.5

Rank #166 Confirmed

Llama 3.2 3B Meta

28.9

Rank #321 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek-V3 scores higher in 6 categories and Llama 3.2 3B in 2 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where DeepSeek-V3 leads 57.4 to 24.7.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is BigCodeBench Complete: 62.2% for DeepSeek-V3 and 28.3% for Llama 3.2 3B.
  • Llama 3.2 3B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.33 per million input/output tokens, against $0.24 / $0.90 for DeepSeek-V3.
  • DeepSeek-V3 accepts more context: 164K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

DeepSeek-V3 and Llama 3.2 3B specifications
DeepSeek-V3Llama 3.2 3B
ProviderDeepSeekMeta
Noometry Index39.528.9
Released2024-12-262024-09-24
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window164K131K
Max output164K118K
Input $ / M tokens$0.24$0.05
Output $ / M tokens$0.90$0.33
Results tracked6018

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Category by category

Coding DeepSeek-V3 leads

DeepSeek-V3: 42.3 (#106), Llama 3.2 3B: 27.6 (#319)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Llama 3.2 3B
BigCodeBench Instruct50%23.4%
LMArena Coding13681098
BigCodeBench Complete62.2%28.3%
Aider Polyglot55.1%—
SciCode35.8%—
WeirdML36.1%—
LiveBench Coding70.9%—
HumanEval+86.6%—
MBPP+73%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

DeepSeek-V3: —, Llama 3.2 3B: 20.1 (#143)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Llama 3.2 3B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—21.9%
BALROG—10.1%
METR Time Horizons49.6%—

Reasoning Too close to call

DeepSeek-V3: 20.5 (#236), Llama 3.2 3B: 21.0 (#228)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Hard Prompts13651095
SimpleBench27.2%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark52.3%—
CritPt0%—
LiveBench Reasoning65.8%—
DTBench64.8%—
LiveBench Data Analysis60.9%—
LMCA15.5%—
BIG-Bench Hard87.5%—
Epoch Capabilities Index135.94—
ForecastBench59.1—
HellaSwag88.9%—
LiveBench66.9%—
PIQA84.7%—
WinoGrande85.2%—

Math Too close to call

DeepSeek-V3: 32.1 (#219), Llama 3.2 3B: 32.4 (#214)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Math13731126
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202537.8%—
Omni-MATH40.3%—
LiveBench Math73.5%—
MATH Level 575.5%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)1.7%—

Knowledge DeepSeek-V3 leads

DeepSeek-V3: 37.5 (#155), Llama 3.2 3B: 29.7 (#235)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Expert13511090
GPQA Diamond67.6%—
MMLU-Pro72.3%—
Confabulations26.1%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate6.1%—
GPQA (HELM)53.8%—
ARC (AI2) Challenge95.3%—
MMLU87.2%—
TriviaQA82.9%—

Multilingual DeepSeek-V3 leads

DeepSeek-V3: 48.5 (#143), Llama 3.2 3B: 26.2 (#281)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Non-English13581019
LMArena Chinese13911017
LMArena German13741056
LMArena Russian1373949
LMArena French1385—
LMArena Japanese1333—
LMArena Korean1319—
LMArena Spanish1358—

Instruction Following DeepSeek-V3 leads

DeepSeek-V3: 72.8 (#130), Llama 3.2 3B: 56.0 (#275)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Instruction Following13451089
LiveBench Instruction Following81.5%—
IFEval83.2%—

Long Context Too close to call

DeepSeek-V3: 34.0 (#253), Llama 3.2 3B: 33.4 (#261)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Longer Query13521100
Fiction.LiveBench50%—

Writing & Preference DeepSeek-V3 leads

DeepSeek-V3: 57.4 (#130), Llama 3.2 3B: 24.7 (#307)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Text13751110
LMArena Creative Writing13641094
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1472595
LMArena Multi-Turn13891105
Short-Story Creative Writing77%—
WildBench83%—
LiveBench Language49.1%—

Frequently asked questions

Is DeepSeek-V3 better than Llama 3.2 3B?

DeepSeek-V3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.5 to 28.9 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.2 3B costs 3.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when DeepSeek-V3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-V3 or Llama 3.2 3B?

Llama 3.2 3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.33 per million output tokens; DeepSeek-V3 lists at $0.24 and $0.90.

Is DeepSeek-V3 or Llama 3.2 3B better for coding?

DeepSeek-V3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.3 versus 27.6 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

DeepSeek-V3 does, with 164K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do DeepSeek-V3 and Llama 3.2 3B share?

16 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek-V3 has 60 scored results on Noometry and Llama 3.2 3B has 18.

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