Model comparison

o3-mini vs Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct

o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 24 shared benchmarks.

o3-mini OpenAI

36.7

Rank #205 Confirmed

Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct Microsoft

28.8

Rank #310 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 24 benchmarks with published results for both. o3-mini scores higher in 8 categories and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in instruction following, where o3-mini leads 75.3 to 52.2.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is LiveBench Reasoning: 89.6% for o3-mini and 15.9% for Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct.
  • Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

o3-mini and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct specifications
o3-miniPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
ProviderOpenAIMicrosoft
Noometry Index36.728.8
Released2024-12-202024-04-23
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window200K—
Max output100K—
Input $ / M tokens$1.10—
Output $ / M tokens$4.40—
Results tracked5132

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Category by category

Coding o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 41.4 (#116), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.4 (#313)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
LiveBench Coding82.7%20.3%
LMArena Coding13781102
Aider Polyglot60.4%—
SciCode39.8%—
GSO1.3%—
WeirdML43.7%—
CadEval54%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

o3-mini: 29.3 (#79), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
Cybench22.5%—

Reasoning o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 16.3 (#295), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.2 (#319)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
LiveBench Reasoning89.6%15.9%
LMArena Hard Prompts13661100
LiveBench Data Analysis70.6%30.3%
LiveBench75.9%24%
ARC-AGI-23%—
SimpleBench22.8%—
ARC-AGI-134.5%—
CritPt0.3%—
Chess Puzzles17%—
Mystery Game Puzzles7%—
DTBench68.8%—
LMCA19%—
Adversarial NLI—58.1%
BIG-Bench Hard—79.1%
Epoch Capabilities Index140.35—
ForecastBench59.6—
HellaSwag—77%
WinoGrande—81.5%

Math o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 27.6 (#236), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 25.4 (#247)

Math benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
LiveBench Math77.3%17.6%
LMArena Math13961151
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)18.6%—
FrontierMath Tier 40%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202576.9%—
MATH Level 596.5%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)12.4%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)4.2%—

Knowledge o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 38.3 (#135), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#237)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
LMArena Expert13641067
GPQA Diamond77%—
SimpleQA Verified15.3%—
Confabulations17.9%—
ARC (AI2) Challenge—90.7%
MMLU—75.7%
OpenBookQA—88%
TriviaQA—58.1%

Multilingual o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 45.9 (#159), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.6 (#267)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
LMArena Non-English13191058
LMArena Chinese13791061
LMArena French13331134
LMArena German13031080
LMArena Japanese1286966
LMArena Korean1314894
LMArena Russian13041111
LMArena Spanish13211111

Instruction Following o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 75.3 (#67), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 52.2 (#287)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
LiveBench Instruction Following84.4%47.2%
LMArena Instruction Following13381087

Long Context Too close to call

o3-mini: 33.8 (#251), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#262)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
LMArena Longer Query13431088
Fiction.LiveBench50%—

Writing & Preference o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 50.4 (#177), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.3 (#279)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniPhi 3 Small 8k Instruct
LMArena Text13371110
LMArena Creative Writing12861083
LMArena Multi-Turn13201068
LiveBench Language50.7%12.9%
Short-Story Creative Writing61.7%—

Frequently asked questions

Is o3-mini better than Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct?

o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index.

Is o3-mini or Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better for coding?

o3-mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.4 versus 27.4 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do o3-mini and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct share?

24 benchmarks have published results for both models. o3-mini has 51 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32.

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