Model comparison
Gemma 3 12B vs Qwen1.5-72B
Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.1 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 13 shared benchmarks.
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Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen1.5-72B in 3 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Gemma 3 12B leads 26.5 to 11.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 39.5% for Gemma 3 12B and 28.8% for Qwen1.5-72B.
Side by side
| Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-72B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | |
| Noometry Index | 32.1 | 30.8 |
| Released | 2025-03-12 | 2024-02-04 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 131K | — |
| Max output | 8K | — |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | — |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.15 | — |
| Results tracked | 24 | 22 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280), Qwen1.5-72B: 31.9 (#277)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-72B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1281 | 1165 |
| SciCode | 17.4% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 33.2% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 40.3% |
| HumanEval+ | — | 59.1% |
| MBPP+ | — | 61.6% |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108), Qwen1.5-72B: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-72B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 30.4% | — |
Reasoning Qwen1.5-72B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313), Qwen1.5-72B: 22.2 (#203)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-72B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1309 | 1148 |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| DTBench | 48.8% | — |
| LMCA | 4.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 123.5 | — |
Math Qwen1.5-72B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279), Qwen1.5-72B: 33.2 (#205)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-72B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1307 | 1164 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.7% | — |
Knowledge Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257), Qwen1.5-72B: 11.5 (#300)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-72B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 39.5% | 28.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | 1136 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.4% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemma 3 12B: —, Qwen1.5-72B: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-72B |
|---|---|---|
| MindCube | 46.7% | — |
Multilingual Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165), Qwen1.5-72B: 33.2 (#253)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-72B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | 1135 |
| LMArena German | 1370 | 1084 |
| LMArena Russian | 1335 | 1104 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1186 |
| LMArena French | — | 1159 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1061 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1050 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1110 |
Instruction Following Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186), Qwen1.5-72B: 59.3 (#256)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-72B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1299 | 1141 |
Long Context Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162), Qwen1.5-72B: 35.1 (#243)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-72B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1317 | 1157 |
Writing & Preference Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209), Qwen1.5-72B: 37.3 (#258)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-72B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1334 | 1166 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1137 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1334 | 1160 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1126 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemma 3 12B better than Qwen1.5-72B?
Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.1 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index.
Is Gemma 3 12B or Qwen1.5-72B better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (31.7 vs 31.9); test both on your own repository before choosing.
How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Qwen1.5-72B share?
13 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen1.5-72B has 22.