Model comparison

Gemma 3 12B vs Gemma 7B

Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.1 to 30.0 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

Gemma 3 12B Google

32.1

Rank #262 Confirmed

Gemma 7B Google

30.0

Rank #299 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 5 categories and Gemma 7B in 3 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in multilingual, where Gemma 3 12B leads 45.7 to 25.1.

Side by side

Gemma 3 12B and Gemma 7B specifications
Gemma 3 12BGemma 7B
ProviderGoogleGoogle
Noometry Index32.130.0
Released2025-03-122024-02-21
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window131K—
Max output8K—
Input $ / M tokens$0.05—
Output $ / M tokens$0.15—
Results tracked2427

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Category by category

Coding Gemma 3 12B leads

Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280), Gemma 7B: 30.5 (#294)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGemma 7B
LMArena Coding12811048
SciCode17.4%—
HumanEval+—28.7%
MBPP+—43.4%

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108), Gemma 7B: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGemma 7B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard30.4%—

Reasoning Gemma 7B leads

Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313), Gemma 7B: 19.9 (#249)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGemma 7B
LMArena Hard Prompts13091042
Epoch Capabilities Index123.5111.99
CritPt0%—
Chess Puzzles0%—
DTBench48.8%—
LMCA4.5%—
Adversarial NLI—48.7%
BIG-Bench Hard—55.1%
HellaSwag—82.2%
PIQA—81.2%
WinoGrande—79%

Math Gemma 7B leads

Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279), Gemma 7B: 31.2 (#228)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGemma 7B
LMArena Math13071066
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202516.7%—
GSM8K—46.4%

Knowledge Too close to call

Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257), Gemma 7B: 27.3 (#252)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGemma 7B
LMArena Expert12481001
GPQA Diamond39.5%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate4.4%—
ARC (AI2) Challenge—78.3%
BoolQ—83.2%
MMLU—66.1%
OpenBookQA—78.6%
TriviaQA—72.3%

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: —, Gemma 7B: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGemma 7B
MindCube46.7%—

Multilingual Gemma 3 12B leads

Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165), Gemma 7B: 25.1 (#287)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGemma 7B
LMArena Non-English1318999
LMArena Russian1335993
LMArena Chinese—1035
LMArena French—1025
LMArena German1370—

Instruction Following Gemma 3 12B leads

Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186), Gemma 7B: 51.5 (#295)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGemma 7B
LMArena Instruction Following12991017

Long Context Gemma 3 12B leads

Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162), Gemma 7B: 31.1 (#282)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGemma 7B
LMArena Longer Query13171022

Writing & Preference Gemma 3 12B leads

Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209), Gemma 7B: 27.1 (#302)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGemma 7B
LMArena Text13341056
LMArena Creative Writing13311024
LMArena Multi-Turn1334963
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1126—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemma 3 12B better than Gemma 7B?

Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.1 to 30.0 on the Noometry Index.

Is Gemma 3 12B or Gemma 7B better for coding?

Gemma 3 12B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 31.7 versus 30.5 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Gemma 7B share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Gemma 7B has 27.

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