# Gemma 3 12B vs Qwen2-72B

> Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.8 to 29.5 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-12b-vs-qwen2-72b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 14

## Summary

- They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 7 categories and Qwen2-72B in 2 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in multilingual, where Gemma 3 12B leads 45.9 to 36.0.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2-72B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.8 | 29.5 |
| Rank | 255 | 294 |
| Context | 131K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | — |
| Output $/M | $0.15 | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 12B: 31.2 (#276)
- Qwen2-72B: 28.7 (#303)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2-72B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1281 | 1196 |
| SciCode | 17.4% | — |
| WeirdML | — | 11.3% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 38.5% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 54% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 12B: 25.3 (#101)
- Qwen2-72B: 16.9 (#138)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2-72B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 30.4% | — |
| TheAgentCompany | — | 1.1% |
| METR Time Horizons | — | 29.9% |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 12B: 15.2 (#307)
- Qwen2-72B: 22.2 (#184)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2-72B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1309 | 1191 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 123.49 | 125.27 |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| DTBench | 48.8% | — |
| LMCA | 4.5% | — |

## Math

- Gemma 3 12B: 21.0 (#273)
- Qwen2-72B: 27.9 (#232)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2-72B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1307 | 1235 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.7% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 39.1% |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#250)
- Qwen2-72B: 21.2 (#270)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2-72B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 39.5% | 40.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | 1171 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.4% | — |
| MMLU | — | 82.4% |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 3 12B: —
- Qwen2-72B: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2-72B |
|---|---|---|
| MindCube | 46.7% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 12B: 45.9 (#160)
- Qwen2-72B: 36.0 (#239)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2-72B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | 1176 |
| LMArena German | 1370 | 1151 |
| LMArena Russian | 1335 | 1169 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1240 |
| LMArena French | — | 1169 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1111 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1083 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1168 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 12B: 68.8 (#179)
- Qwen2-72B: 62.0 (#236)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2-72B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1299 | 1181 |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#157)
- Qwen2-72B: 36.1 (#230)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2-72B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1317 | 1193 |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 12B: 47.7 (#205)
- Qwen2-72B: 41.0 (#236)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2-72B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1334 | 1203 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1181 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1334 | 1195 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1126 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 12B better than Qwen2-72B?

Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.8 to 29.5 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Gemma 3 12B or Qwen2-72B better for coding?

Gemma 3 12B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 31.2 versus 28.7 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Qwen2-72B share?

14 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen2-72B has 26.