# Gemma 3 12B vs o1

> o1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.9 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 350× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-12b-vs-o1
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 18

## Summary

- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 1 category and o1 in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where o1 leads 41.5 to 26.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 16.7% for Gemma 3 12B and 73.3% for o1.
- Gemma 3 12B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $15 / $60 for o1.
- o1 accepts more context: 200K tokens versus 131K.
- Gemma 3 12B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 12B | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | OpenAI |
| Noometry Index | 32.1 | 40.9 |
| Rank | 262 | 143 |
| Context | 131K | 200K |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | $15 |
| Output $/M | $0.15 | $60 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280)
- o1: 46.1 (#70)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1281 | 1367 |
| Aider Polyglot | — | 61.7% |
| SciCode | 17.4% | — |
| WeirdML | — | 47.6% |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 69.7% |
| CadEval | — | 56% |
| HumanEval+ | — | 89% |
| MBPP+ | — | 80.2% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108)
- o1: 24.6 (#117)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 30.4% | — |
| Cybench | — | 10% |
| METR Time Horizons | — | 51.1% |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313)
- o1: 27.9 (#111)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 15% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1309 | 1371 |
| DTBench | 48.8% | 74.7% |
| LMCA | 4.5% | 22.3% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 123.5 | 141.91 |
| SimpleBench | — | 41.7% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 30.7% |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| EnigmaEval | — | 5.7% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 91.6% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 65.5% |
| LiveBench | — | 75.7% |

## Math

- Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279)
- o1: 36.1 (#175)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.7% | 73.3% |
| LMArena Math | 1307 | 1388 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 14.7% |
| LiveBench Math | — | 80.3% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 94.7% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 9.3% |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257)
- o1: 41.5 (#110)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 39.5% | 76.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | 1361 |
| Humanity's Last Exam | — | 8% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 41.1% |
| Confabulations | — | 11.7% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.4% | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 3 12B: —
- o1: 34.2 (#93)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1168 |
| GeoBench | — | 80% |
| VPCT | — | 37% |
| MindCube | 46.7% | — |
| SpatialViz-Bench | — | 41.4% |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165)
- o1: 48.6 (#142)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | 1358 |
| LMArena German | 1370 | 1337 |
| LMArena Russian | 1335 | 1356 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1394 |
| LMArena French | — | 1344 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1346 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1396 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1345 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186)
- o1: 74.8 (#86)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1299 | 1367 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 81.5% |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162)
- o1: 50.3 (#9)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1317 | 1378 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 83.3% |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209)
- o1: 55.6 (#144)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1334 | 1366 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1348 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1334 | 1369 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 70.2% |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1126 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 65.4% |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 12B better than o1?

o1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.9 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 350× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 12B or o1?

Gemma 3 12B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; o1 lists at $15 and $60.

### Is Gemma 3 12B or o1 better for coding?

o1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.1 versus 31.7 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

o1 does, with 200K tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and o1 share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and o1 has 52.