Model comparison

GPT-5 Nano vs Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct

GPT-5 Nano is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.5 to 27.9 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

GPT-5 Nano OpenAI

33.5

Rank #241 Confirmed

Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct Microsoft

27.9

Rank #328 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5 Nano scores higher in 7 categories and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct in 1 category; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in instruction following, where GPT-5 Nano leads 75.0 to 47.7.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Chess Puzzles: 27% for GPT-5 Nano and 0% for Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct.
  • Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-5 Nano and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct specifications
GPT-5 NanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
ProviderOpenAIMicrosoft
Noometry Index33.527.9
Released2025-08-072024-04-23
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window400K—
Max output128K—
Input $ / M tokens$0.05—
Output $ / M tokens$0.40—
Results tracked4935

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

Category by category

Coding GPT-5 Nano leads

GPT-5 Nano: 33.6 (#254), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.6 (#323)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Coding13511093
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)34.8%—
WeirdML38.1%—
LiveBench Coding—15.5%
ALE-Bench718.67—
HumanEval+—59.1%
MBPP+—54.2%

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

GPT-5 Nano: 25.8 (#106), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
Terminal-Bench21.8%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard51.5%—

Reasoning GPT-5 Nano leads

GPT-5 Nano: 16.3 (#306), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 14.1 (#328)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
Chess Puzzles27%0%
LMArena Hard Prompts13281072
ARC-AGI-22.6%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark62.2%—
ARC-AGI-120.7%—
LiveBench Reasoning—26.8%
Mystery Game Puzzles9%—
DTBench62.7%—
LiveBench Data Analysis—34.7%
LMCA7.9%—
Adversarial NLI—52.8%
BIG-Bench Hard—71.7%
Epoch Capabilities Index139.38—
ForecastBench59.1—
HellaSwag—76.7%
LiveBench—22.4%
WinoGrande—70.8%

Math GPT-5 Nano leads

GPT-5 Nano: 29.4 (#241), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.6 (#257)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Math13171111
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)20%—
FrontierMath Tier 42.4%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202581.1%—
ProofBench12%—
Omni-MATH54.6%—
LiveBench Math—15.7%
MATH Level 595.2%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)8.3%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)2.1%—

Knowledge GPT-5 Nano leads

GPT-5 Nano: 35.9 (#178), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 28.5 (#246)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Expert13211045
GPQA Diamond69.4%—
SimpleQA Verified11.7%—
MMLU-Pro77.8%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate10.5%—
GPQA (HELM)67.9%—
ARC (AI2) Challenge—84.9%
MMLU—68.8%
OpenBookQA—88%
TriviaQA—64%

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-5 Nano: 31.3 (#108), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Vision1159—
VPCT37.2%—

Multilingual GPT-5 Nano leads

GPT-5 Nano: 45.3 (#172), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.3 (#280)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Non-English13131021
LMArena Chinese13561021
LMArena German13271044
LMArena Japanese1226935
LMArena Korean1269905
LMArena Russian12961022
LMArena Spanish13601085
LMArena French—1076

Instruction Following GPT-5 Nano leads

GPT-5 Nano: 75.0 (#79), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 47.7 (#303)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following13061053
LiveBench Instruction Following—39.1%
IFEval93.2%—

Long Context Too close to call

GPT-5 Nano: 31.3 (#281), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 31.7 (#276)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Longer Query13121044
Fiction.LiveBench44.4%—

Writing & Preference GPT-5 Nano leads

GPT-5 Nano: 39.1 (#249), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 27.6 (#300)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Text13201073
LMArena Creative Writing12491037
LMArena Multi-Turn13111018
EQ-Bench Creative Writing705—
WildBench80.6%—
LiveBench Language—9.2%

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-5 Nano better than Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct?

GPT-5 Nano is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.5 to 27.9 on the Noometry Index.

Is GPT-5 Nano or Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct better for coding?

GPT-5 Nano scores higher on coding benchmarks: 33.6 versus 26.6 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do GPT-5 Nano and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5 Nano has 49 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct has 35.

Related comparisons

Go deeper