Model comparison

Gemma 2 27B vs o4-mini

o4-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.6 to 29.4 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 2 27B costs 3.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o4-mini's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 24 shared benchmarks.

Gemma 2 27B Google

29.4

Rank #312 Confirmed

o4-mini OpenAI

41.6

Rank #132 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 24 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 2 27B scores higher in 0 categories and o4-mini in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where o4-mini leads 40.8 to 10.7.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 1.4% for Gemma 2 27B and 81.7% for o4-mini.
  • Gemma 2 27B is cheaper at $0.65 / $0.65 per million input/output tokens, against $1.10 / $4.40 for o4-mini.
  • o4-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 and o4-mini specifications
Gemma 2 27Bo4-mini
ProviderGoogleOpenAI
Noometry Index29.441.6
Released2024-06-242025-04-16
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window8K200K
Max output2K100K
Input $ / M tokens$0.65$1.10
Output $ / M tokens$0.65$4.40
Results tracked3460

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Category by category

Coding o4-mini leads

Gemma 2 27B: 34.1 (#246), o4-mini: 40.9 (#127)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 27Bo4-mini
LMArena Coding12111368
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)—45%
Aider Polyglot—72%
GSO—3.6%
WeirdML—52.6%
BigCodeBench Instruct42.8%—
LiveBench Coding36%—
BigCodeBench Complete52.5%—
CadEval—62%
ALE-Bench—826.17
AlgoTune—1.72

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Gemma 2 27B: —, o4-mini: 32.6 (#61)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 27Bo4-mini
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—53.2%
GDPval—25.3%
METR Time Horizons—63.9%

Reasoning o4-mini leads

Gemma 2 27B: 15.3 (#315), o4-mini: 24.6 (#162)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 27Bo4-mini
LMArena Hard Prompts11981351
DTBench48%77.6%
LMCA7.1%26.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index122.08145.64
ARC-AGI-2—6.1%
SimpleBench—38.7%
Kagi LLM Benchmark—67.6%
ARC-AGI-1—58.7%
CritPt—0.6%
Chess Puzzles—26%
EnigmaEval—9.2%
LiveBench Reasoning28.1%—
Mystery Game Puzzles—5%
LiveBench Data Analysis47.9%—
ForecastBench—61.8
LiveBench38.2%—

Math o4-mini leads

Gemma 2 27B: 10.7 (#311), o4-mini: 40.8 (#89)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 27Bo4-mini
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-20251.4%81.7%
LMArena Math12121389
MATH Level 527.9%97.8%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—36.1%
FrontierMath Tier 4—4.9%
Omni-MATH—72%
LiveBench Math26.5%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)—24.8%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)—6.3%

Knowledge o4-mini leads

Gemma 2 27B: 19.0 (#280), o4-mini: 43.6 (#91)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 27Bo4-mini
GPQA Diamond36.5%79.6%
Confabulations27.1%15.8%
LMArena Expert11721343
Humanity's Last Exam—18.1%
SimpleQA Verified—19.6%
MMLU-Pro—82%
Vectara Hallucination Rate—18.6%
GPQA (HELM)—73.5%
MMLU75.7%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemma 2 27B: —, o4-mini: 40.2 (#49)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 27Bo4-mini
LMArena Vision—1194
GeoBench—64%
VPCT—57.5%

Multilingual o4-mini leads

Gemma 2 27B: 38.6 (#226), o4-mini: 47.0 (#154)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 27Bo4-mini
LMArena Non-English12171337
LMArena Chinese12211354
LMArena French12471364
LMArena German12091336
LMArena Japanese11751308
LMArena Korean11741312
LMArena Russian12341334
LMArena Spanish12281347

Instruction Following o4-mini leads

Gemma 2 27B: 60.5 (#249), o4-mini: 75.2 (#68)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 27Bo4-mini
LMArena Instruction Following12061321
LiveBench Instruction Following58.1%—
IFEval—92.8%

Long Context o4-mini leads

Gemma 2 27B: 37.3 (#218), o4-mini: 45.5 (#33)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 27Bo4-mini
LMArena Longer Query12311315
Fiction.LiveBench—77.8%

Writing & Preference o4-mini leads

Gemma 2 27B: 44.2 (#225), o4-mini: 54.0 (#152)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 27Bo4-mini
LMArena Text12311353
LMArena Creative Writing12411294
LMArena Multi-Turn12241350
Short-Story Creative Writing—75%
WildBench—85.4%
LiveBench Language32.6%—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemma 2 27B better than o4-mini?

o4-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.6 to 29.4 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 2 27B costs 3.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o4-mini's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemma 2 27B or o4-mini?

Gemma 2 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.65 per million input tokens and $0.65 per million output tokens; o4-mini lists at $1.10 and $4.40.

Is Gemma 2 27B or o4-mini better for coding?

o4-mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.9 versus 34.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

o4-mini does, with 200K tokens against 8K.

How many benchmarks do Gemma 2 27B and o4-mini share?

24 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 2 27B has 34 scored results on Noometry and o4-mini has 60.

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