Model comparison
Gemma 3 12B vs Llama 2-13B
Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.1 to 29.6 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 15 shared benchmarks.
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MetaSummary
- They share 15 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 6 categories and Llama 2-13B in 2 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in multilingual, where Gemma 3 12B leads 45.7 to 26.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is DTBench: 48.8% for Gemma 3 12B and 42.2% for Llama 2-13B.
Side by side
| Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-13B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | |
| Noometry Index | 32.1 | 29.6 |
| Released | 2025-03-12 | 2023-07-18 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 131K | — |
| Max output | 8K | — |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | — |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.15 | — |
| Results tracked | 24 | 32 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280), Llama 2-13B: 30.9 (#291)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-13B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1281 | 1062 |
| SciCode | 17.4% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108), Llama 2-13B: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-13B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 30.4% | — |
Reasoning Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313), Llama 2-13B: 12.8 (#337)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-13B |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 0% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1309 | 1051 |
| DTBench | 48.8% | 42.2% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 123.5 | 106.17 |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| LMCA | 4.5% | — |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 58.2% |
| HellaSwag | — | 80.7% |
| LAMBADA | — | 76.5% |
| PIQA | — | 80.8% |
| WinoGrande | — | 72.8% |
Math Llama 2-13B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279), Llama 2-13B: 31.1 (#229)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-13B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1307 | 1065 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.7% | — |
| GSM8K | — | 36.9% |
Knowledge Llama 2-13B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257), Llama 2-13B: 28.1 (#249)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-13B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | 1030 |
| GPQA Diamond | 39.5% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.4% | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 60.3% |
| BoolQ | — | 82.4% |
| MMLU | — | 55.6% |
| OpenBookQA | — | 57% |
| TriviaQA | — | 79.6% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemma 3 12B: —, Llama 2-13B: —
Multilingual Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165), Llama 2-13B: 26.5 (#279)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-13B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | 1024 |
| LMArena German | 1370 | 1009 |
| LMArena Russian | 1335 | 1055 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1001 |
| LMArena French | — | 1044 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 894 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 953 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1087 |
Instruction Following Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186), Llama 2-13B: 53.3 (#287)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-13B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1299 | 1045 |
Long Context Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162), Llama 2-13B: 32.3 (#269)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-13B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1317 | 1064 |
Writing & Preference Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209), Llama 2-13B: 29.8 (#289)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-13B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1334 | 1084 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1047 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1334 | 1050 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1126 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemma 3 12B better than Llama 2-13B?
Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.1 to 29.6 on the Noometry Index.
Is Gemma 3 12B or Llama 2-13B better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (31.7 vs 30.9); test both on your own repository before choosing.
How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Llama 2-13B share?
15 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Llama 2-13B has 32.