Model comparison
Gemma 2 27B vs o3-mini
o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 29.4 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 2 27B costs 3.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o3-mini's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 31 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 31 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 2 27B scores higher in 1 category and o3-mini in 7 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where o3-mini leads 38.3 to 19.0.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 1.4% for Gemma 2 27B and 76.9% for o3-mini.
- Gemma 2 27B is cheaper at $0.65 / $0.65 per million input/output tokens, against $1.10 / $4.40 for o3-mini.
- o3-mini accepts more context: 200K tokens versus 8K.
- Gemma 2 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Gemma 2 27B | o3-mini | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | |
| Noometry Index | 29.4 | 36.7 |
| Released | 2024-06-24 | 2024-12-20 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 8K | 200K |
| Max output | 2K | 100K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.65 | $1.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.65 | $4.40 |
| Results tracked | 34 | 51 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding o3-mini leads
Gemma 2 27B: 34.1 (#246), o3-mini: 40.8 (#132)
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 27B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Coding | 36% | 82.7% |
| LMArena Coding | 1211 | 1378 |
| Aider Polyglot | — | 60.4% |
| SciCode | — | 39.8% |
| GSO | — | 1.3% |
| WeirdML | — | 43.7% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 42.8% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 52.5% | — |
| CadEval | — | 54% |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Gemma 2 27B: —, o3-mini: 29.6 (#84)
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 27B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Cybench | — | 22.5% |
Reasoning Too close to call
Gemma 2 27B: 15.3 (#315), o3-mini: 16.3 (#305)
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 27B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Reasoning | 28.1% | 89.6% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1198 | 1366 |
| DTBench | 48% | 68.8% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 47.9% | 70.6% |
| LMCA | 7.1% | 19% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 122.08 | 140.34 |
| LiveBench | 38.2% | 75.9% |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 3% |
| SimpleBench | — | 22.8% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 34.5% |
| CritPt | — | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 17% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 7% |
| ForecastBench | — | 59.6 |
Math o3-mini leads
Gemma 2 27B: 10.7 (#311), o3-mini: 28.1 (#244)
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 27B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 1.4% | 76.9% |
| LiveBench Math | 26.5% | 77.3% |
| LMArena Math | 1212 | 1396 |
| MATH Level 5 | 27.9% | 96.5% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.6% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 0% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 12.4% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |
Knowledge o3-mini leads
Gemma 2 27B: 19.0 (#280), o3-mini: 38.3 (#146)
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 27B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 36.5% | 77% |
| Confabulations | 27.1% | 17.9% |
| LMArena Expert | 1172 | 1364 |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 15.3% |
| MMLU | 75.7% | — |
Multilingual o3-mini leads
Gemma 2 27B: 38.6 (#226), o3-mini: 45.7 (#164)
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 27B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1217 | 1319 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1221 | 1379 |
| LMArena French | 1247 | 1334 |
| LMArena German | 1209 | 1303 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1175 | 1286 |
| LMArena Korean | 1174 | 1314 |
| LMArena Russian | 1234 | 1304 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1228 | 1321 |
Instruction Following o3-mini leads
Gemma 2 27B: 60.5 (#249), o3-mini: 75.1 (#72)
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 27B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 58.1% | 84.4% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1206 | 1337 |
Long Context Gemma 2 27B leads
Gemma 2 27B: 37.3 (#218), o3-mini: 33.8 (#256)
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 27B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1231 | 1343 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 50% |
Writing & Preference o3-mini leads
Gemma 2 27B: 44.2 (#225), o3-mini: 50.3 (#182)
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 27B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1231 | 1337 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1241 | 1286 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1224 | 1320 |
| LiveBench Language | 32.6% | 50.7% |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 61.7% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemma 2 27B better than o3-mini?
o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 29.4 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 2 27B costs 3.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o3-mini's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Gemma 2 27B or o3-mini?
Gemma 2 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.65 per million input tokens and $0.65 per million output tokens; o3-mini lists at $1.10 and $4.40.
Is Gemma 2 27B or o3-mini better for coding?
o3-mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.8 versus 34.1 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
o3-mini does, with 200K tokens against 8K.
How many benchmarks do Gemma 2 27B and o3-mini share?
31 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 2 27B has 34 scored results on Noometry and o3-mini has 51.