# Gemma 3 12B vs Qwen1.5-32B

> Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.1 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-12b-vs-qwen1-5-32b
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 13

## Summary

- They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 6 categories and Qwen1.5-32B in 2 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in multilingual, where Gemma 3 12B leads 45.7 to 31.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 39.5% for Gemma 3 12B and 30.7% for Qwen1.5-32B.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-32B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 32.1 | 30.5 |
| Rank | 262 | 293 |
| Context | 131K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | — |
| Output $/M | $0.15 | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280)
- Qwen1.5-32B: 31.7 (#282)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1281 | 1155 |
| SciCode | 17.4% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 32.3% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 42% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108)
- Qwen1.5-32B: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-32B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 30.4% | — |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313)
- Qwen1.5-32B: 21.8 (#212)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1309 | 1130 |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| DTBench | 48.8% | — |
| LMCA | 4.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 123.5 | — |

## Math

- Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279)
- Qwen1.5-32B: 33.0 (#207)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1307 | 1155 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.7% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257)
- Qwen1.5-32B: 13.5 (#296)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-32B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 39.5% | 30.7% |
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | 1126 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.4% | — |
| MMLU | — | 74.4% |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 3 12B: —
- Qwen1.5-32B: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-32B |
|---|---|---|
| MindCube | 46.7% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165)
- Qwen1.5-32B: 31.4 (#259)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | 1106 |
| LMArena German | 1370 | 1058 |
| LMArena Russian | 1335 | 1073 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1177 |
| LMArena French | — | 1101 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1027 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1008 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1089 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186)
- Qwen1.5-32B: 57.7 (#265)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1299 | 1116 |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162)
- Qwen1.5-32B: 34.7 (#246)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1317 | 1146 |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209)
- Qwen1.5-32B: 34.2 (#271)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen1.5-32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1334 | 1137 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1083 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1334 | 1140 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1126 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 12B better than Qwen1.5-32B?

Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.1 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Gemma 3 12B or Qwen1.5-32B better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (31.7 vs 31.7); test both on your own repository before choosing.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Qwen1.5-32B share?

13 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen1.5-32B has 21.