Noometry

Model comparison

Gemma 3 12B vs Grok 4.6

Grok 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.8 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 40× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 20 shared benchmarks.

Gemma 3 12B Google

31.8

Rank #255 Confirmed

Grok 4.6 xAI

56.8

Rank #19 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 0 categories and Grok 4.6 in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.6 leads 61.3 to 15.2.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 16.7% for Gemma 3 12B and 99.2% for Grok 4.6.
  • Gemma 3 12B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Grok 4.6.
  • Grok 4.6 accepts more context: 500K tokens versus 131K.
  • Gemma 3 12B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemma 3 12BGrok 4.6
ProviderGooglexAI
Noometry Index31.856.8
Released2025-03-122026-08-12
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window131K500K
Max output8K500K
Input $ / M tokens$0.05$2
Output $ / M tokens$0.15$6
Results tracked2449

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Category by category

Coding Grok 4.6 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 31.2 (#276), Grok 4.6: 58.0 (#14)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok 4.6
SciCode17.4%56.5%
LMArena Coding12811464
DeepSWE—67.5%
FrontierCode—48%
CursorBench—41.4%
LMArena WebDev—1620
FrontierSWE—25.3%
WeirdML—67.3%
ALE-Bench—1,508

Agentic & Tool Use Grok 4.6 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 25.3 (#101), Grok 4.6: 39.4 (#25)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok 4.6
APEX-Agents—65.3%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard30.4%—
GDP.pdf—17.2%
Vending-Bench 2—9,047

Reasoning Grok 4.6 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 15.2 (#307), Grok 4.6: 61.3 (#18)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok 4.6
CritPt0%19.7%
Chess Puzzles0%40%
LMArena Hard Prompts13091445
DTBench48.8%97.3%
LMCA4.5%48.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index123.49156.48
ARC-AGI-2—67.1%
SimpleBench—75.9%
NYT Connections (extended)—80%
ARC-AGI-1—87.5%
EBR-Bench—30.5%
Mystery Game Puzzles—34%

Math Grok 4.6 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 21.0 (#273), Grok 4.6: 66.8 (#19)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok 4.6
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202516.7%99.2%
LMArena Math13071416
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—66%
FrontierMath Tier 4—31.7%
ProofBench—51%

Knowledge Grok 4.6 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#250), Grok 4.6: 63.3 (#18)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok 4.6
GPQA Diamond39.5%94%
LMArena Expert12481463
SimpleQA Verified—49.3%
Vectara Hallucination Rate4.4%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: —, Grok 4.6: 43.9 (#18)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok 4.6
LMArena Vision—1265
Blueprint-Bench 2—33.2%
Furniture Assembly—40%
LMArena Document—1452
MindCube46.7%—

Multilingual Grok 4.6 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 45.9 (#160), Grok 4.6: 53.3 (#67)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok 4.6
LMArena Non-English13181422
LMArena German13701425
LMArena Russian13351427
LMArena Chinese—1479
LMArena French—1458
LMArena Japanese—1383
LMArena Korean—1395
LMArena Spanish—1408

Instruction Following Grok 4.6 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 68.8 (#179), Grok 4.6: 75.6 (#59)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok 4.6
LMArena Instruction Following12991431

Long Context Grok 4.6 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#157), Grok 4.6: 44.4 (#62)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok 4.6
LMArena Longer Query13171453

Writing & Preference Grok 4.6 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 47.7 (#205), Grok 4.6: 62.5 (#77)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BGrok 4.6
LMArena Text13341427
LMArena Creative Writing13311430
LMArena Multi-Turn13341422
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1126—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemma 3 12B better than Grok 4.6?

Grok 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.8 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 40× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 12B or Grok 4.6?

Gemma 3 12B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Grok 4.6 lists at $2 and $6.

Is Gemma 3 12B or Grok 4.6 better for coding?

Grok 4.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 58.0 versus 31.2 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Grok 4.6 does, with 500K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Grok 4.6 share?

20 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Grok 4.6 has 49.

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