# Gemma 3 12B vs Granite 3.1 8b Instruct

> Gemma 3 12B and Granite 3.1 8b Instruct score almost the same on the Noometry Index (32.1 vs 32.4), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-12b-vs-granite-3-1-8b-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 12

## Summary

- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 5 categories and Granite 3.1 8b Instruct in 4 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in multilingual, where Gemma 3 12B leads 45.7 to 30.9.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | IBM |
| Noometry Index | 32.1 | 32.4 |
| Rank | 262 | 258 |
| Context | 131K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | — |
| Output $/M | $0.15 | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 34.5 (#233)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1281 | 1186 |
| SciCode | 17.4% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 24.1 (#120)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 30.4% | 27.1% |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 22.1 (#207)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1309 | 1145 |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| DTBench | 48.8% | — |
| LMCA | 4.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 123.5 | — |

## Math

- Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 33.0 (#209)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1307 | 1152 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.7% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#220)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | 1142 |
| GPQA Diamond | 39.5% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.4% | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 3 12B: —
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| MindCube | 46.7% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 30.9 (#260)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | 1099 |
| LMArena Russian | 1335 | 1092 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1145 |
| LMArena German | 1370 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 58.6 (#259)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1299 | 1131 |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.2 (#241)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1317 | 1162 |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.5 (#266)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1334 | 1150 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1129 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1334 | 1108 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1126 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 12B better than Granite 3.1 8b Instruct?

Gemma 3 12B and Granite 3.1 8b Instruct score almost the same on the Noometry Index (32.1 vs 32.4), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

### Is Gemma 3 12B or Granite 3.1 8b Instruct better for coding?

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 34.5 versus 31.7 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Granite 3.1 8b Instruct share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has 13.