Noometry

Model comparison

Gemma 3 12B vs Granite 4.0 Micro

Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.8 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 1.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemma 3 12B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 3 shared benchmarks.

Gemma 3 12B Google

31.8

Rank #255 Confirmed

Granite 4.0 Micro IBM

28.8

Rank #312 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 3 categories and Granite 4.0 Micro in 2 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where Gemma 3 12B leads 26.5 to 9.9.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 16.7% for Gemma 3 12B and 2.8% for Granite 4.0 Micro.
  • Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $0.05 / $0.15 for Gemma 3 12B.
  • Gemma 3 12B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

Gemma 3 12BGranite 4.0 Micro
ProviderGoogleIBM
Noometry Index31.828.8
Released2025-03-122025-10-02
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window131K131K
Max output8K118K
Input $ / M tokens$0.05$0.017
Output $ / M tokens$0.15$0.11
Results tracked248

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 31.2 (#276), Granite 4.0 Micro: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGranite 4.0 Micro
SciCode17.4%—
LMArena Coding1281—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 25.3 (#101), Granite 4.0 Micro: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGranite 4.0 Micro
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard30.4%—

Reasoning Granite 4.0 Micro leads

Gemma 3 12B: 15.2 (#307), Granite 4.0 Micro: 18.5 (#261)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGranite 4.0 Micro
Chess Puzzles0%0%
CritPt0%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1309—
DTBench48.8%—
LMCA4.5%—
Epoch Capabilities Index123.49—

Math Gemma 3 12B leads

Gemma 3 12B: 21.0 (#273), Granite 4.0 Micro: 11.2 (#301)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGranite 4.0 Micro
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202516.7%2.8%
Omni-MATH—20.9%
LMArena Math1307—

Knowledge Gemma 3 12B leads

Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#250), Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#299)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGranite 4.0 Micro
GPQA Diamond39.5%28.3%
MMLU-Pro—39.5%
Vectara Hallucination Rate4.4%—
GPQA (HELM)—30.7%
LMArena Expert1248—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: —, Granite 4.0 Micro: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGranite 4.0 Micro
MindCube46.7%—

Multilingual Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 45.9 (#160), Granite 4.0 Micro: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGranite 4.0 Micro
LMArena Non-English1318—
LMArena German1370—
LMArena Russian1335—

Instruction Following Granite 4.0 Micro leads

Gemma 3 12B: 68.8 (#179), Granite 4.0 Micro: 70.0 (#164)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGranite 4.0 Micro
IFEval—84.9%
LMArena Instruction Following1299—

Long Context Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#157), Granite 4.0 Micro: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGranite 4.0 Micro
LMArena Longer Query1317—

Writing & Preference Gemma 3 12B leads

Gemma 3 12B: 47.7 (#205), Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#212)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGranite 4.0 Micro
LMArena Text1334—
LMArena Creative Writing1331—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1126—
WildBench—67%
LMArena Multi-Turn1334—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemma 3 12B better than Granite 4.0 Micro?

Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.8 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 1.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemma 3 12B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 12B or Granite 4.0 Micro?

Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; Gemma 3 12B lists at $0.05 and $0.15.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemma 3 12B does, with 131K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Granite 4.0 Micro share?

3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Granite 4.0 Micro has 8.

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