# Gemma 3 27B vs Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct

> Gemma 3 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 30.5 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-27b-vs-phi-3-small-8k-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 24

## Summary

- They share 24 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 27B scores higher in 4 categories and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct in 4 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Gemma 3 27B leads 52.7 to 31.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is LiveBench Math: 55.4% for Gemma 3 27B and 17.6% for Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 27B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 30.5 | 28.8 |
| Rank | 277 | 310 |
| Context | 131K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.08 | — |
| Output $/M | $0.16 | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 27B: 22.1 (#329)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.4 (#313)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Coding | 39.9% | 20.3% |
| LMArena Coding | 1322 | 1102 |
| Aider Polyglot | 4.9% | — |
| SciCode | 21.2% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 27B: 24.9 (#105)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 29.5% | — |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 27B: 16.3 (#297)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.2 (#319)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Reasoning | 43.8% | 15.9% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1340 | 1100 |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 51.5% | 30.3% |
| LiveBench | 50% | 24% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.4% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| DTBench | 52.5% | — |
| LMCA | 12.3% | — |
| Adversarial NLI | — | 58.1% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 79.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 130.04 | — |
| HellaSwag | — | 77% |
| WinoGrande | — | 81.5% |

## Math

- Gemma 3 27B: 24.4 (#261)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 25.4 (#247)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Math | 55.4% | 17.6% |
| LMArena Math | 1312 | 1151 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 22.5% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 74% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 27B: 25.4 (#256)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#237)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1303 | 1067 |
| GPQA Diamond | 47.7% | — |
| Confabulations | 40.3% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.4% | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 90.7% |
| MMLU | — | 75.7% |
| OpenBookQA | — | 88% |
| TriviaQA | — | 58.1% |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 3 27B: 32.0 (#94)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1165 | — |
| GeoBench | 52% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 27B: 47.0 (#150)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.6 (#267)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1334 | 1058 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1347 | 1061 |
| LMArena French | 1368 | 1134 |
| LMArena German | 1362 | 1080 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1287 | 966 |
| LMArena Korean | 1308 | 894 |
| LMArena Russian | 1349 | 1111 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1348 | 1111 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 27B: 70.8 (#155)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 52.2 (#287)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 74.9% | 47.2% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1321 | 1087 |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 27B: 27.6 (#288)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#262)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1333 | 1088 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 33.3% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 27B: 52.7 (#161)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.3 (#279)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1358 | 1110 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1346 | 1083 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1344 | 1068 |
| LiveBench Language | 34.6% | 12.9% |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 79.9% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1266 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 27B better than Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct?

Gemma 3 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 30.5 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Gemma 3 27B or Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better for coding?

Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 27.4 versus 22.1 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 27B and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct share?

24 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 27B has 43 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32.