Model comparison

Gemma 3 12B vs o1

o1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.9 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 350× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 18 shared benchmarks.

Gemma 3 12B Google

32.1

Rank #262 Confirmed

o1 OpenAI

40.9

Rank #143 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 1 category and o1 in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where o1 leads 41.5 to 26.5.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 16.7% for Gemma 3 12B and 73.3% for o1.
  • Gemma 3 12B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $15 / $60 for o1.
  • o1 accepts more context: 200K tokens versus 131K.
  • Gemma 3 12B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemma 3 12B and o1 specifications
Gemma 3 12Bo1
ProviderGoogleOpenAI
Noometry Index32.140.9
Released2025-03-122024-09-12
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window131K200K
Max output8K100K
Input $ / M tokens$0.05$15
Output $ / M tokens$0.15$60
Results tracked2452

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Category by category

Coding o1 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280), o1: 46.1 (#70)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12Bo1
LMArena Coding12811367
Aider Polyglot—61.7%
SciCode17.4%—
WeirdML—47.6%
LiveBench Coding—69.7%
CadEval—56%
HumanEval+—89%
MBPP+—80.2%

Agentic & Tool Use Too close to call

Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108), o1: 24.6 (#117)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12Bo1
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard30.4%—
Cybench—10%
METR Time Horizons—51.1%

Reasoning o1 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313), o1: 27.9 (#111)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12Bo1
Chess Puzzles0%15%
LMArena Hard Prompts13091371
DTBench48.8%74.7%
LMCA4.5%22.3%
Epoch Capabilities Index123.5141.91
SimpleBench—41.7%
ARC-AGI-1—30.7%
CritPt0%—
EnigmaEval—5.7%
LiveBench Reasoning—91.6%
LiveBench Data Analysis—65.5%
LiveBench—75.7%

Math o1 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279), o1: 36.1 (#175)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12Bo1
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202516.7%73.3%
LMArena Math13071388
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—14.7%
LiveBench Math—80.3%
MATH Level 5—94.7%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)—9.3%

Knowledge o1 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257), o1: 41.5 (#110)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12Bo1
GPQA Diamond39.5%76.8%
LMArena Expert12481361
Humanity's Last Exam—8%
SimpleQA Verified—41.1%
Confabulations—11.7%
Vectara Hallucination Rate4.4%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: —, o1: 34.2 (#93)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12Bo1
LMArena Vision—1168
GeoBench—80%
VPCT—37%
MindCube46.7%—
SpatialViz-Bench—41.4%

Multilingual o1 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165), o1: 48.6 (#142)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12Bo1
LMArena Non-English13181358
LMArena German13701337
LMArena Russian13351356
LMArena Chinese—1394
LMArena French—1344
LMArena Japanese—1346
LMArena Korean—1396
LMArena Spanish—1345

Instruction Following o1 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186), o1: 74.8 (#86)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12Bo1
LMArena Instruction Following12991367
LiveBench Instruction Following—81.5%

Long Context o1 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162), o1: 50.3 (#9)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12Bo1
LMArena Longer Query13171378
Fiction.LiveBench—83.3%

Writing & Preference o1 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209), o1: 55.6 (#144)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 12Bo1
LMArena Text13341366
LMArena Creative Writing13311348
LMArena Multi-Turn13341369
Short-Story Creative Writing—70.2%
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1126—
LiveBench Language—65.4%

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemma 3 12B better than o1?

o1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.9 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 350× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 12B or o1?

Gemma 3 12B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; o1 lists at $15 and $60.

Is Gemma 3 12B or o1 better for coding?

o1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.1 versus 31.7 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

o1 does, with 200K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and o1 share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and o1 has 52.

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