Model comparison

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct vs Phi-4

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.0 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct Microsoft

33.0

Rank #250 Confirmed

Phi-4 Microsoft

31.2

Rank #279 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct scores higher in 2 categories and Phi-4 in 6 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct leads 33.4 to 20.8.

Side by side

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct and Phi-4 specifications
Phi 3 Medium 4k InstructPhi-4
ProviderMicrosoftMicrosoft
Noometry Index33.031.2
Released—2024-12-11
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window—128K
Max output—4K
Input $ / M tokens—$0.07
Output $ / M tokens—$0.14
Results tracked1737

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Category by category

Coding Phi-4 leads

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 32.9 (#268), Phi-4: 34.4 (#239)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Medium 4k InstructPhi-4
LMArena Coding11301231
BigCodeBench Instruct—45.5%
LiveBench Coding—30.7%
BigCodeBench Complete—55.4%

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: —, Phi-4: 22.8 (#128)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Medium 4k InstructPhi-4
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—28.8%
BALROG—11.6%

Reasoning Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct leads

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 21.7 (#214), Phi-4: 17.7 (#291)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Medium 4k InstructPhi-4
LMArena Hard Prompts11271220
Chess Puzzles—1%
LiveBench Reasoning—47.8%
LiveBench Data Analysis—45.2%
Epoch Capabilities Index—130.42
LiveBench—41.6%

Math Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct leads

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 33.4 (#202), Phi-4: 20.8 (#285)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Medium 4k InstructPhi-4
LMArena Math11731246
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—13.8%
LiveBench Math—42%
MATH Level 5—64.9%

Knowledge Phi-4 leads

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 30.2 (#229), Phi-4: 32.6 (#209)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Medium 4k InstructPhi-4
LMArena Expert11081203
GPQA Diamond—56.1%
Confabulations—29.4%
Vectara Hallucination Rate—3.7%
MMLU—84.8%

Multilingual Phi-4 leads

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 30.6 (#263), Phi-4: 37.2 (#237)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Medium 4k InstructPhi-4
LMArena Non-English10941197
LMArena Chinese11081212
LMArena French11101224
LMArena German11011222
LMArena Japanese10421158
LMArena Korean9541151
LMArena Russian11451209
LMArena Spanish10951234

Instruction Following Phi-4 leads

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 57.6 (#268), Phi-4: 60.4 (#251)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Medium 4k InstructPhi-4
LMArena Instruction Following11131201
LiveBench Instruction Following—58.4%

Long Context Phi-4 leads

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 34.0 (#255), Phi-4: 36.9 (#226)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Medium 4k InstructPhi-4
LMArena Longer Query11201217

Writing & Preference Phi-4 leads

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 34.1 (#272), Phi-4: 40.5 (#244)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkPhi 3 Medium 4k InstructPhi-4
LMArena Text11381217
LMArena Creative Writing11071182
LMArena Multi-Turn10881206
Short-Story Creative Writing—62.6%
LiveBench Language—25.6%

Frequently asked questions

Is Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct better than Phi-4?

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.0 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index.

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

Phi-4 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 34.4 versus 32.9 in the Noometry coding category.

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

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct has 17 scored results on Noometry and Phi-4 has 37.

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