# Gemma 3 12B vs Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)

> Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.5 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 21× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-12b-vs-grok-4-20
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 19

## Summary

- They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 0 categories and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads 52.2 to 15.2.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 16.7% for Gemma 3 12B and 92.2% for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning).
- Gemma 3 12B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $1.25 / $2.50 for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning).
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Gemma 3 12B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 12B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | xAI |
| Noometry Index | 31.8 | 48.5 |
| Rank | 255 | 48 |
| Context | 131K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | $1.25 |
| Output $/M | $0.15 | $2.50 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 12B: 31.2 (#276)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 41.8 (#104)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1281 | 1458 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1374 |
| SciCode | 17.4% | — |
| WeirdML | — | 52.3% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 1,150 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 12B: 25.3 (#101)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 34.3 (#43)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 57.3% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 30.4% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | — | 18% |
| LMArena Search | — | 1189 |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 4,663 |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 12B: 15.2 (#307)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.2 (#30)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 24% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1309 | 1451 |
| DTBench | 48.8% | 90.1% |
| LMCA | 4.5% | 38.7% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 123.49 | 152.01 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 65.1% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 75% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 85.4% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 89.5% |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 63.8% |
| ForecastBench | — | 61.4 |

## Math

- Gemma 3 12B: 21.0 (#273)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 48.0 (#54)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.7% | 92.2% |
| LMArena Math | 1307 | 1455 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 44.9% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 17.1% |
| ProofBench | — | 14% |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#250)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.8 (#54)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 39.5% | 89.3% |
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | 1440 |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 30.2% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.4% | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 3 12B: —
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 33.2 (#88)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1263 |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | — | 0% |
| LMArena Document | — | 1416 |
| MindCube | 46.7% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 12B: 45.9 (#160)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 54.7 (#38)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | 1440 |
| LMArena German | 1370 | 1463 |
| LMArena Russian | 1335 | 1457 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1481 |
| LMArena French | — | 1477 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1450 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1417 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1442 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 12B: 68.8 (#179)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 75.0 (#79)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1299 | 1420 |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#157)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 45.4 (#33)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1317 | 1436 |
| CL-bench | — | 22.2% |
| CL-bench Life | — | 11.9% |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 12B: 47.7 (#205)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 65.9 (#42)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1334 | 1451 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1439 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1126 | 1574 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1334 | 1456 |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 12B better than Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.5 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 21× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 12B or Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)?

Gemma 3 12B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) lists at $1.25 and $2.50.

### Is Gemma 3 12B or Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) better for coding?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.8 versus 31.2 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) share?

19 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) has 46.