Noometry

Model comparison

Gemini 3 Flash Preview vs Llama 3.2 3B

Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 28.9 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.2 3B costs 9.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3 Flash Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 14 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 3 Flash Preview Google

52.3

Rank #40 Confirmed

Llama 3.2 3B Meta

28.9

Rank #321 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3 Flash Preview scores higher in 9 categories and Llama 3.2 3B in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads 65.5 to 24.7.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is BALROG: 48.1% for Gemini 3 Flash Preview and 10.1% for Llama 3.2 3B.
  • Llama 3.2 3B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.33 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $3 for Gemini 3 Flash Preview.
  • Gemini 3 Flash Preview accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 131K.
  • Llama 3.2 3B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemini 3 Flash PreviewLlama 3.2 3B
ProviderGoogleMeta
Noometry Index52.328.9
Released2025-12-172024-09-24
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M131K
Max output66K118K
Input $ / M tokens$0.50$0.05
Output $ / M tokens$3$0.33
Results tracked5918

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 50.9 (#42), Llama 3.2 3B: 27.6 (#319)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewLlama 3.2 3B
LMArena Coding14601098
SWE-bench Verified75.4%—
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)75.8%—
LMArena WebDev1439—
SWE-bench Multilingual72.7%—
GSO9.8%—
WeirdML61.6%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—23.4%
BigCodeBench Complete—28.3%
ALE-Bench1,367—

Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 38.7 (#29), Llama 3.2 3B: 20.1 (#143)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewLlama 3.2 3B
BALROG48.1%10.1%
Terminal-Bench64.3%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—21.9%
τ²-bench Airline82.5%—
τ²-bench Banking27.3%—
τ²-bench Retail76.8%—
τ²-bench Telecom91.2%—
DeepResearch Bench49.8%—
GDP.pdf10%—
LMArena Search1198—
Vending-Bench 23,635—

Reasoning Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 49.2 (#37), Llama 3.2 3B: 21.0 (#228)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewLlama 3.2 3B
LMArena Hard Prompts14651095
ARC-AGI-233.6%—
SimpleBench61.1%—
NYT Connections (extended)83.1%—
ARC-AGI-184.7%—
Chess Puzzles40%—
Mystery Game Puzzles26%—
DTBench89.1%—
LMCA43.1%—
Epoch Capabilities Index151.8—
ForecastBench58.5—

Math Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 51.7 (#55), Llama 3.2 3B: 32.4 (#214)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewLlama 3.2 3B
LMArena Math14731126
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)51.2%—
FrontierMath Tier 417.1%—
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions67.6%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202595.6%—
ProofBench15%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)35.6%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)4.2%—

Knowledge Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 58.8 (#33), Llama 3.2 3B: 29.7 (#235)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewLlama 3.2 3B
LMArena Expert14621090
GPQA Diamond89.4%—
SimpleQA Verified66.8%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate13.5%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 45.5 (#16), Llama 3.2 3B: —

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewLlama 3.2 3B
LMArena Vision1285—
GeoBench88%—
VPCT72.6%—
Blueprint-Bench 20%—
LMArena Document1413—

Multilingual Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 55.7 (#27), Llama 3.2 3B: 26.2 (#281)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewLlama 3.2 3B
LMArena Non-English14581019
LMArena Chinese15111017
LMArena German14971056
LMArena Russian1480949
LMArena French1477—
LMArena Japanese1489—
LMArena Korean1443—
LMArena Spanish1469—

Instruction Following Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 75.7 (#56), Llama 3.2 3B: 56.0 (#275)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewLlama 3.2 3B
LMArena Instruction Following14371089

Long Context Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 44.4 (#67), Llama 3.2 3B: 33.4 (#261)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewLlama 3.2 3B
LMArena Longer Query14521100

Writing & Preference Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 65.5 (#45), Llama 3.2 3B: 24.7 (#307)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewLlama 3.2 3B
LMArena Text14661110
LMArena Creative Writing14571094
LMArena Multi-Turn14711105
EQ-Bench Creative Writing—595

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 3 Flash Preview better than Llama 3.2 3B?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 28.9 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.2 3B costs 9.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3 Flash Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3 Flash Preview 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; Gemini 3 Flash Preview lists at $0.50 and $3.

Is Gemini 3 Flash Preview or Llama 3.2 3B better for coding?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.9 versus 27.6 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview does, with 1.05M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 3 Flash Preview and Llama 3.2 3B share?

14 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3 Flash Preview has 59 scored results on Noometry and Llama 3.2 3B has 18.

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