Model comparison

gpt-oss-120b vs Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct

gpt-oss-120b is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.3 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

gpt-oss-120b OpenAI

36.3

Rank #217 Confirmed

Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct Microsoft

29.3

Rank #314 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. gpt-oss-120b scores higher in 7 categories and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct in 1 category; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where gpt-oss-120b leads 52.5 to 27.6.

Side by side

gpt-oss-120b and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct specifications
gpt-oss-120bPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
ProviderOpenAIMicrosoft
Noometry Index36.329.3
Released2025-08-052024-04-23
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window131K—
Max output41K—
Input $ / M tokens$0.037—
Output $ / M tokens$0.17—
Results tracked4832

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Category by category

Coding gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 33.5 (#256), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.9 (#318)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
LMArena Coding13801101
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)26%—
Aider Polyglot41.8%—
SciCode36%—
WeirdML48.2%—
LiveBench Coding—20.3%
ALE-Bench575.62—
AlgoTune1.41—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

gpt-oss-120b: 12.2 (#153), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
Terminal-Bench18.7%—
APEX-Agents4.4%—
METR Time Horizons56.6%—
Vending-Bench 2-21.53—

Reasoning gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 20.0 (#245), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.8 (#323)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
LMArena Hard Prompts13641100
SimpleBench22.1%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark58.6%—
CritPt1.1%—
Chess Puzzles20%—
LiveBench Reasoning—15.9%
Mystery Game Puzzles2%—
DTBench76.3%—
LiveBench Data Analysis—30.3%
LMCA22.1%—
Surface Evolver Bench25%—
Adversarial NLI—58.1%
BIG-Bench Hard—79.1%
Epoch Capabilities Index139.93—
HellaSwag—77%
LiveBench—24%
WinoGrande—81.5%

Math gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 52.5 (#50), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.6 (#248)

Math benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
LMArena Math13891151
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202588.9%—
Omni-MATH68.8%—
LiveBench Math—17.6%

Knowledge gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 42.4 (#96), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 29.1 (#240)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
LMArena Expert13561067
GPQA Diamond75.8%—
MMLU-Pro79.5%—
Confabulations15.7%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate14.2%—
GPQA (HELM)68.4%—
ARC (AI2) Challenge—90.7%
MMLU—75.7%
OpenBookQA—88%
TriviaQA—58.1%

Multilingual gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 48.0 (#147), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#272)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
LMArena Non-English13511058
LMArena Chinese13851061
LMArena French13691135
LMArena German13531080
LMArena Japanese1331966
LMArena Korean1282894
LMArena Russian13431111
LMArena Spanish13891111

Instruction Following gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 69.3 (#173), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 51.9 (#292)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following13181087
LiveBench Instruction Following—47.2%
IFEval83.6%—

Long Context Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct leads

gpt-oss-120b: 31.4 (#278), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#267)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
LMArena Longer Query13191088
Fiction.LiveBench44.4%—

Writing & Preference gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 46.5 (#217), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.1 (#284)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
LMArena Text13651110
LMArena Creative Writing12751083
LMArena Multi-Turn13401068
Short-Story Creative Writing77.1%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing961—
WildBench84.5%—
LiveBench Language—12.9%

Frequently asked questions

Is gpt-oss-120b better than Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct?

gpt-oss-120b is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.3 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.

Is gpt-oss-120b or Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better for coding?

gpt-oss-120b scores higher on coding benchmarks: 33.5 versus 27.9 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do gpt-oss-120b and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. gpt-oss-120b has 48 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32.

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