Model comparison

GPT-4.1 mini vs Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct

GPT-4.1 mini and Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct score almost the same on the Noometry Index (33.6 vs 33.0), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

GPT-4.1 mini OpenAI

33.6

Rank #240 Confirmed

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct Microsoft

33.0

Rank #250 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-4.1 mini scores higher in 4 categories and Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct in 4 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in instruction following, where GPT-4.1 mini leads 73.7 to 57.6.
  • Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-4.1 mini and Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct specifications
GPT-4.1 miniPhi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
ProviderOpenAIMicrosoft
Noometry Index33.633.0
Released2025-04-14—
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M—
Max output33K—
Input $ / M tokens$0.40—
Output $ / M tokens$1.60—
Results tracked4717

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 30.6 (#293), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 32.9 (#268)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Coding13671130
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)23.9%—
Aider Polyglot32.4%—
SciCode40.4%—
WeirdML37.6%—
BigCodeBench Instruct48.9%—
CadEval16%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 33.3 (#55), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard50.5%—

Reasoning Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 10.8 (#340), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 21.7 (#214)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Hard Prompts13491127
ARC-AGI-20%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark48.6%—
ARC-AGI-13.5%—
CritPt0%—
Chess Puzzles7%—
Mystery Game Puzzles7%—
DTBench68.8%—
LMCA21.1%—
Epoch Capabilities Index135.01—

Math Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 24.1 (#270), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 33.4 (#202)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Math13431173
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)6.7%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202544.7%—
Omni-MATH49.1%—
MATH Level 587.3%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)4.5%—

Knowledge GPT-4.1 mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 34.7 (#194), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 30.2 (#229)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Expert13381108
GPQA Diamond65.8%—
SimpleQA Verified12.7%—
MMLU-Pro78.3%—
GPQA (HELM)61.4%—

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 35.8 (#82), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Vision1181—

Multilingual GPT-4.1 mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 45.7 (#166), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 30.6 (#263)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Non-English13181094
LMArena Chinese13291108
LMArena French13581110
LMArena German13511101
LMArena Japanese12901042
LMArena Korean1298954
LMArena Russian13241145
LMArena Spanish13191095

Instruction Following GPT-4.1 mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 73.7 (#118), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 57.6 (#268)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following13331113
IFEval90.4%—

Long Context Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 31.8 (#275), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 34.0 (#255)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Longer Query13441120
Fiction.LiveBench44.4%—

Writing & Preference GPT-4.1 mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 48.6 (#199), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 34.1 (#272)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniPhi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Text13401138
LMArena Creative Writing13001107
LMArena Multi-Turn13541088
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1147—
WildBench83.8%—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-4.1 mini better than Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct?

GPT-4.1 mini and Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct score almost the same on the Noometry Index (33.6 vs 33.0), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

Is GPT-4.1 mini or Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct better for coding?

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 32.9 versus 30.6 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do GPT-4.1 mini and Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-4.1 mini has 47 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct has 17.

Related comparisons

Go deeper