# Gemma 3 12B vs Llama 3-70B

> Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.8 to 28.5 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-12b-vs-llama-3-70b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 16

## Summary

- They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 7 categories and Llama 3-70B in 2 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in multilingual, where Gemma 3 12B leads 45.9 to 33.8.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 16.7% for Gemma 3 12B and 4.3% for Llama 3-70B.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Meta |
| Noometry Index | 31.8 | 28.5 |
| Rank | 255 | 317 |
| Context | 131K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | — |
| Output $/M | $0.15 | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 12B: 31.2 (#276)
- Llama 3-70B: 35.3 (#215)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1281 | 1206 |
| SciCode | 17.4% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 43.6% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 54.5% |
| HumanEval+ | — | 72% |
| MBPP+ | — | 69% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 12B: 25.3 (#101)
- Llama 3-70B: 20.9 (#132)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 30.4% | — |
| Cybench | — | 5% |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 12B: 15.2 (#307)
- Llama 3-70B: 17.4 (#284)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1309 | 1195 |
| DTBench | 48.8% | 54.2% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 123.49 | 122.91 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 35.1% |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| LMCA | 4.5% | — |
| ForecastBench | — | 57.1 |
| WinoGrande | — | 83.5% |

## Math

- Gemma 3 12B: 21.0 (#273)
- Llama 3-70B: 12.0 (#299)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.7% | 4.3% |
| LMArena Math | 1307 | 1218 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 22.6% |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#250)
- Llama 3-70B: 20.8 (#272)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 39.5% | 40.6% |
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | 1149 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.4% | — |
| MMLU | — | 79.3% |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 3 12B: —
- Llama 3-70B: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| MindCube | 46.7% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 12B: 45.9 (#160)
- Llama 3-70B: 33.8 (#246)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | 1142 |
| LMArena German | 1370 | 1169 |
| LMArena Russian | 1335 | 1159 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1114 |
| LMArena French | — | 1231 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1017 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1017 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1241 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 12B: 68.8 (#179)
- Llama 3-70B: 62.8 (#233)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1299 | 1194 |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#157)
- Llama 3-70B: 35.6 (#235)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1317 | 1174 |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 12B: 47.7 (#205)
- Llama 3-70B: 43.0 (#225)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Llama 3-70B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1334 | 1221 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1210 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1334 | 1223 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1126 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 12B better than Llama 3-70B?

Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.8 to 28.5 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Gemma 3 12B or Llama 3-70B better for coding?

Llama 3-70B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 35.3 versus 31.2 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Llama 3-70B share?

16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Llama 3-70B has 31.