# Gemma 3 27B vs Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)

> Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.5 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 16× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-27b-vs-grok-4-20
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 26

## Summary

- They share 26 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 27B scores higher in 0 categories and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) in 10 categories; 10 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads 52.2 to 16.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 22.5% for Gemma 3 27B and 92.2% for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning).
- Gemma 3 27B is cheaper at $0.08 / $0.16 per million input/output tokens, against $1.25 / $2.50 for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning).
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Gemma 3 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 27B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | xAI |
| Noometry Index | 30.5 | 48.5 |
| Rank | 277 | 48 |
| Context | 131K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.08 | $1.25 |
| Output $/M | $0.16 | $2.50 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 27B: 22.1 (#329)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 41.8 (#104)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1322 | 1458 |
| Aider Polyglot | 4.9% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1374 |
| SciCode | 21.2% | — |
| WeirdML | — | 52.3% |
| LiveBench Coding | 39.9% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 1,150 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 27B: 24.9 (#105)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 34.3 (#43)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 57.3% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 29.5% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | — | 18% |
| LMArena Search | — | 1189 |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 4,663 |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 27B: 16.3 (#297)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.2 (#30)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.4% | 75% |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 24% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1340 | 1451 |
| DTBench | 52.5% | 90.1% |
| LMCA | 12.3% | 38.7% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 130.04 | 152.01 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 65.1% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 85.4% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 89.5% |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 63.8% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 43.8% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 51.5% | — |
| ForecastBench | — | 61.4 |
| LiveBench | 50% | — |

## Math

- Gemma 3 27B: 24.4 (#261)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 48.0 (#54)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 22.5% | 92.2% |
| LMArena Math | 1312 | 1455 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 44.9% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 17.1% |
| ProofBench | — | 14% |
| LiveBench Math | 55.4% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 74% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 27B: 25.4 (#256)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.8 (#54)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 47.7% | 89.3% |
| LMArena Expert | 1303 | 1440 |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 30.2% |
| Confabulations | 40.3% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.4% | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 3 27B: 32.0 (#94)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 33.2 (#88)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1165 | 1263 |
| GeoBench | 52% | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | — | 0% |
| LMArena Document | — | 1416 |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 27B: 47.0 (#150)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 54.7 (#38)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1334 | 1440 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1347 | 1481 |
| LMArena French | 1368 | 1477 |
| LMArena German | 1362 | 1463 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1287 | 1450 |
| LMArena Korean | 1308 | 1417 |
| LMArena Russian | 1349 | 1457 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1348 | 1442 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 27B: 70.8 (#155)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 75.0 (#79)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1321 | 1420 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 74.9% | — |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 27B: 27.6 (#288)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 45.4 (#33)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1333 | 1436 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 33.3% | — |
| CL-bench | — | 22.2% |
| CL-bench Life | — | 11.9% |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 27B: 52.7 (#161)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 65.9 (#42)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1358 | 1451 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1346 | 1439 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1266 | 1574 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1344 | 1456 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 79.9% | — |
| LiveBench Language | 34.6% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 27B better than Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.5 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 16× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 27B or Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)?

Gemma 3 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.08 per million input tokens and $0.16 per million output tokens; Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) lists at $1.25 and $2.50.

### Is Gemma 3 27B or Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) better for coding?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.8 versus 22.1 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 27B and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) share?

26 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 27B has 43 scored results on Noometry and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) has 46.