Noometry

Model comparison

Gemma 3 12B vs Grok-2 (Dec 2024)

Grok-2 (Dec 2024) is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.7 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 16 shared benchmarks.

Gemma 3 12B Google

32.1

Rank #262 Confirmed

Grok-2 (Dec 2024) xAI

33.7

Rank #239 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 4 categories and Grok-2 (Dec 2024) in 4 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where Grok-2 (Dec 2024) leads 29.8 to 26.5.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is DTBench: 48.8% for Gemma 3 12B and 65.2% for Grok-2 (Dec 2024).
  • Gemma 3 12B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemma 3 12BGrok-2 (Dec 2024)
ProviderGooglexAI
Noometry Index32.133.7
Released2025-03-122024-08-13
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window131K—
Max output8K—
Input $ / M tokens$0.05—
Output $ / M tokens$0.15—
Results tracked2434

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Category by category

Coding Grok-2 (Dec 2024) leads

Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280), Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 33.3 (#258)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok-2 (Dec 2024)
LMArena Coding12811287
SciCode17.4%—
WeirdML—22.2%
LiveBench Coding—46.4%

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108), Grok-2 (Dec 2024): —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok-2 (Dec 2024)
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard30.4%—

Reasoning Grok-2 (Dec 2024) leads

Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313), Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 16.9 (#299)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok-2 (Dec 2024)
LMArena Hard Prompts13091272
DTBench48.8%65.2%
Epoch Capabilities Index123.5130.48
SimpleBench—22.7%
CritPt0%—
Chess Puzzles0%—
LiveBench Reasoning—54.8%
LiveBench Data Analysis—54.5%
LMCA4.5%—
LiveBench—54.3%

Math Gemma 3 12B leads

Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279), Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 20.8 (#284)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok-2 (Dec 2024)
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202516.7%11.5%
LMArena Math13071283
LiveBench Math—54.9%
MATH Level 5—63.5%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)—0.7%

Knowledge Grok-2 (Dec 2024) leads

Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257), Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 29.8 (#233)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok-2 (Dec 2024)
GPQA Diamond39.5%53.8%
LMArena Expert12481254
Confabulations—20.1%
Vectara Hallucination Rate4.4%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: —, Grok-2 (Dec 2024): —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok-2 (Dec 2024)
MindCube46.7%—

Multilingual Gemma 3 12B leads

Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165), Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 43.1 (#188)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok-2 (Dec 2024)
LMArena Non-English13181282
LMArena German13701287
LMArena Russian13351286
LMArena Chinese—1289
LMArena French—1318
LMArena Japanese—1244
LMArena Korean—1237
LMArena Spanish—1281

Instruction Following Gemma 3 12B leads

Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186), Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 66.9 (#202)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok-2 (Dec 2024)
LMArena Instruction Following12991270
LiveBench Instruction Following—69.6%

Long Context Gemma 3 12B leads

Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162), Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 38.8 (#190)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok-2 (Dec 2024)
LMArena Longer Query13171276

Writing & Preference Grok-2 (Dec 2024) leads

Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209), Grok-2 (Dec 2024): 48.6 (#198)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok-2 (Dec 2024)
LMArena Text13341305
LMArena Creative Writing13311284
LMArena Multi-Turn13341290
Short-Story Creative Writing—63.6%
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1126—
LiveBench Language—45.6%

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemma 3 12B better than Grok-2 (Dec 2024)?

Grok-2 (Dec 2024) is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.7 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index.

Is Gemma 3 12B or Grok-2 (Dec 2024) better for coding?

Grok-2 (Dec 2024) scores higher on coding benchmarks: 33.3 versus 31.7 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Grok-2 (Dec 2024) share?

16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Grok-2 (Dec 2024) has 34.

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