Model comparison
Gemma 3 12B vs GPT-4
Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.1 to 29.1 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 19 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 7 categories and GPT-4 in 1 category; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Gemma 3 12B leads 47.5 to 34.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 16.7% for Gemma 3 12B and 1.1% for GPT-4.
- Gemma 3 12B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $30 / $60 for GPT-4.
- Gemma 3 12B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 8K.
- Gemma 3 12B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Gemma 3 12B | GPT-4 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | |
| Noometry Index | 32.1 | 29.1 |
| Released | 2025-03-12 | 2023-03-14 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 131K | 8K |
| Max output | 8K | 8K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | $30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.15 | $60 |
| Results tracked | 24 | 38 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280), GPT-4: 31.6 (#283)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | GPT-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1281 | 1254 |
| SciCode | 17.4% | — |
| WeirdML | — | 12.4% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 46% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 57.2% |
| HumanEval+ | — | 79.3% |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108), GPT-4: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | GPT-4 |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 30.4% | — |
| METR Time Horizons | — | 36.1% |
Reasoning GPT-4 leads
Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313), GPT-4: 17.8 (#289)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | GPT-4 |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 4% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1309 | 1241 |
| DTBench | 48.8% | 62.7% |
| LMCA | 4.5% | 17.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 123.5 | 125.89 |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 12% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 75.1% |
| ForecastBench | — | 57.8 |
| HellaSwag | — | 95.3% |
| WinoGrande | — | 87.5% |
Math Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279), GPT-4: 10.8 (#309)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | GPT-4 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.7% | 1.1% |
| LMArena Math | 1307 | 1269 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 23% |
| GSM8K | — | 92% |
Knowledge Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257), GPT-4: 18.4 (#282)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | GPT-4 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 39.5% | 35.7% |
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | 1211 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.4% | — |
| MMLU | — | 86.4% |
| TriviaQA | — | 84.8% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemma 3 12B: —, GPT-4: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | GPT-4 |
|---|---|---|
| MindCube | 46.7% | — |
Multilingual Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165), GPT-4: 40.6 (#215)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | GPT-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | 1246 |
| LMArena German | 1370 | 1251 |
| LMArena Russian | 1335 | 1251 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1242 |
| LMArena French | — | 1283 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1209 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1184 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1261 |
Instruction Following Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186), GPT-4: 65.3 (#222)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | GPT-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1299 | 1241 |
Long Context Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162), GPT-4: 37.7 (#212)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | GPT-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1317 | 1244 |
Writing & Preference Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209), GPT-4: 34.9 (#268)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | GPT-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1334 | 1263 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1244 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1126 | 752 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1334 | 1257 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemma 3 12B better than GPT-4?
Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.1 to 29.1 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 12B or GPT-4?
Gemma 3 12B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; GPT-4 lists at $30 and $60.
Is Gemma 3 12B or GPT-4 better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (31.7 vs 31.6); test both on your own repository before choosing.
Which has the bigger context window?
Gemma 3 12B does, with 131K tokens against 8K.
How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and GPT-4 share?
19 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and GPT-4 has 38.