Noometry

Model comparison

Gemma 3 12B vs Magistral Small

Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.1 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 7 shared benchmarks.

Gemma 3 12B Google

32.1

Rank #262 Confirmed

Magistral Small Mistral AI

30.2

Rank #296 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 7 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 1 category and Magistral Small in 3 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemma 3 12B leads 15.7 to 6.8.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is SciCode: 17.4% for Gemma 3 12B and 35.2% for Magistral Small.
  • Gemma 3 12B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $1.50 for Magistral Small.
  • Gemma 3 12B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 128K.

Side by side

Gemma 3 12BMagistral Small
ProviderGoogleMistral AI
Noometry Index32.130.2
Released2025-03-122025-06-10
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window131K128K
Max output8K40K
Input $ / M tokens$0.05$0.50
Output $ / M tokens$0.15$1.50
Results tracked2410

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Category by category

Coding Magistral Small leads

Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280), Magistral Small: 38.4 (#176)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BMagistral Small
SciCode17.4%35.2%
LMArena Coding1281—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108), Magistral Small: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BMagistral Small
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard30.4%—

Reasoning Gemma 3 12B leads

Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313), Magistral Small: 6.8 (#350)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BMagistral Small
CritPt0%0.3%
Chess Puzzles0%3%
DTBench48.8%61.3%
Epoch Capabilities Index123.5133.19
ARC-AGI-2—0%
Kagi LLM Benchmark—6.3%
ARC-AGI-1—5%
LMArena Hard Prompts1309—
LMCA4.5%—

Math Magistral Small leads

Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279), Magistral Small: 26.2 (#261)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BMagistral Small
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202516.7%30%
LMArena Math1307—

Knowledge Magistral Small leads

Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257), Magistral Small: 30.9 (#223)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BMagistral Small
GPQA Diamond39.5%56.1%
Vectara Hallucination Rate4.4%—
LMArena Expert1248—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: —, Magistral Small: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BMagistral Small
MindCube46.7%—

Multilingual Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165), Magistral Small: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BMagistral Small
LMArena Non-English1318—
LMArena German1370—
LMArena Russian1335—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186), Magistral Small: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BMagistral Small
LMArena Instruction Following1299—

Long Context Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162), Magistral Small: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BMagistral Small
LMArena Longer Query1317—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209), Magistral Small: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BMagistral Small
LMArena Text1334—
LMArena Creative Writing1331—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1126—
LMArena Multi-Turn1334—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemma 3 12B better than Magistral Small?

Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.1 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 12B or Magistral Small?

Gemma 3 12B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Magistral Small lists at $0.50 and $1.50.

Is Gemma 3 12B or Magistral Small better for coding?

Magistral Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.4 versus 31.7 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemma 3 12B does, with 131K tokens against 128K.

How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Magistral Small share?

7 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Magistral Small has 10.

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