# Gemma 3 12B vs Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct

> Gemma 3 12B and Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct score almost the same on the Noometry Index (32.1 vs 33.0), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-12b-vs-phi-3-medium-4k-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 12

## Summary

- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 4 categories and Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct in 4 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in multilingual, where Gemma 3 12B leads 45.7 to 30.6.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 12B | Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 32.1 | 33.0 |
| Rank | 262 | 250 |
| Context | 131K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | — |
| Output $/M | $0.15 | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280)
- Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 32.9 (#268)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1281 | 1130 |
| SciCode | 17.4% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108)
- Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 30.4% | — |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313)
- Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 21.7 (#214)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1309 | 1127 |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| DTBench | 48.8% | — |
| LMCA | 4.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 123.5 | — |

## Math

- Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279)
- Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 33.4 (#202)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1307 | 1173 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.7% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257)
- Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 30.2 (#229)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | 1108 |
| GPQA Diamond | 39.5% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.4% | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 3 12B: —
- Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| MindCube | 46.7% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165)
- Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 30.6 (#263)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | 1094 |
| LMArena German | 1370 | 1101 |
| LMArena Russian | 1335 | 1145 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1108 |
| LMArena French | — | 1110 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1042 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 954 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1095 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186)
- Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 57.6 (#268)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1299 | 1113 |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162)
- Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 34.0 (#255)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1317 | 1120 |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209)
- Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 34.1 (#272)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1334 | 1138 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1107 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1334 | 1088 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1126 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 12B better than Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct?

Gemma 3 12B and Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct score almost the same on the Noometry Index (32.1 vs 33.0), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

### Is Gemma 3 12B or Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct better for coding?

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 32.9 versus 31.7 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct has 17.