Model comparison
Gemma 3 12B vs Llama 2-70B
Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.1 to 24.4 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 16 shared benchmarks.
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MetaSummary
- They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 8 categories and Llama 2-70B in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Gemma 3 12B leads 26.5 to 7.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 16.7% for Gemma 3 12B and 0% for Llama 2-70B.
Side by side
| Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-70B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | |
| Noometry Index | 32.1 | 24.4 |
| 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 | 35 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280), Llama 2-70B: 31.4 (#286)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1281 | 1079 |
| SciCode | 17.4% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108), Llama 2-70B: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-70B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 30.4% | — |
Reasoning Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313), Llama 2-70B: 14.4 (#325)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1309 | 1073 |
| DTBench | 48.8% | 41.6% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 123.5 | 113.79 |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| LMCA | 4.5% | — |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 64.9% |
| CommonsenseQA 2.0 | — | 50% |
| ForecastBench | — | 51.4 |
| HellaSwag | — | 85.3% |
| LAMBADA | — | 78.9% |
| PIQA | — | 82.8% |
| WinoGrande | — | 80.2% |
Math Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279), Llama 2-70B: 8.1 (#326)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-70B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.7% | 0% |
| LMArena Math | 1307 | 1091 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 3.3% |
| GSM8K | — | 69.6% |
Knowledge Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257), Llama 2-70B: 7.4 (#310)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-70B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 39.5% | 26.3% |
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | 1039 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.4% | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 78.3% |
| BoolQ | — | 88.6% |
| MMLU | — | 69.9% |
| OpenBookQA | — | 60.2% |
| TriviaQA | — | 87.6% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemma 3 12B: —, Llama 2-70B: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-70B |
|---|---|---|
| MindCube | 46.7% | — |
Multilingual Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165), Llama 2-70B: 27.7 (#274)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | 1045 |
| LMArena German | 1370 | 1041 |
| LMArena Russian | 1335 | 1083 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 995 |
| LMArena French | — | 1090 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 927 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 964 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1143 |
Instruction Following Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186), Llama 2-70B: 54.9 (#278)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1299 | 1071 |
Long Context Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162), Llama 2-70B: 32.3 (#270)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1317 | 1062 |
Writing & Preference Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209), Llama 2-70B: 32.3 (#279)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 2-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1334 | 1115 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1075 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1334 | 1088 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1126 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemma 3 12B better than Llama 2-70B?
Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.1 to 24.4 on the Noometry Index.
Is Gemma 3 12B or Llama 2-70B better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (31.7 vs 31.4); test both on your own repository before choosing.
How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Llama 2-70B share?
16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Llama 2-70B has 35.