# Llama 3.2 3B vs Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

> Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.9 to 28.9 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.2 3B costs 20× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen2.5 72B Instruct's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/llama-3-2-3b-vs-qwen2-5-72b-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 16

## Summary

- They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Llama 3.2 3B scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct in 7 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen2.5 72B Instruct leads 46.7 to 24.7.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is BigCodeBench Complete: 28.3% for Llama 3.2 3B and 55.9% for Qwen2.5 72B Instruct.
- Llama 3.2 3B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.33 per million input/output tokens, against $1.40 / $5.60 for Qwen2.5 72B Instruct.

## Snapshot

| | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 28.9 | 31.9 |
| Rank | 321 | 267 |
| Context | 131K | 131K |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | $1.40 |
| Output $/M | $0.33 | $5.60 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Llama 3.2 3B: 27.6 (#319)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 33.2 (#260)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 23.4% | 45.8% |
| LMArena Coding | 1098 | 1292 |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 28.3% | 55.9% |
| WeirdML | — | 16% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Llama 3.2 3B: 20.1 (#143)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 22.1 (#133)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| BALROG | 10.1% | 16.2% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 21.9% | — |
| TheAgentCompany | — | 5.7% |
| METR Time Horizons | — | 35.8% |

## Reasoning

- Llama 3.2 3B: 21.0 (#228)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 22.3 (#199)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1095 | 1271 |
| DTBench | — | 62.9% |
| LMCA | — | 13.4% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 79.8% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 129 |
| ForecastBench | — | 57.5 |
| HellaSwag | — | 84.8% |
| PIQA | — | 82.6% |
| WinoGrande | — | 82.3% |

## Math

- Llama 3.2 3B: 32.4 (#214)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 19.3 (#287)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1126 | 1283 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 8.1% |
| Omni-MATH | — | 33% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 63.2% |

## Knowledge

- Llama 3.2 3B: 29.7 (#235)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 27.0 (#253)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1090 | 1245 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 49.1% |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 63.1% |
| Confabulations | — | 19.1% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 42.6% |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 94.5% |
| MMLU | — | 85.3% |
| TriviaQA | — | 71.9% |

## Multilingual

- Llama 3.2 3B: 26.2 (#281)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 41.0 (#213)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1019 | 1252 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1017 | 1272 |
| LMArena German | 1056 | 1234 |
| LMArena Russian | 949 | 1264 |
| LMArena French | — | 1280 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1180 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1188 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1256 |

## Instruction Following

- Llama 3.2 3B: 56.0 (#275)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 65.5 (#221)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1089 | 1254 |
| IFEval | — | 80.6% |

## Long Context

- Llama 3.2 3B: 33.4 (#261)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 38.9 (#188)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1100 | 1282 |

## Writing & Preference

- Llama 3.2 3B: 24.7 (#307)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 46.7 (#215)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1110 | 1269 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1094 | 1221 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1105 | 1272 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 595 | — |
| WildBench | — | 80.2% |

## FAQ

### Is Llama 3.2 3B better than Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.9 to 28.9 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.2 3B costs 20× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen2.5 72B Instruct's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Llama 3.2 3B or Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?

Llama 3.2 3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.33 per million output tokens; Qwen2.5 72B Instruct lists at $1.40 and $5.60.

### Is Llama 3.2 3B or Qwen2.5 72B Instruct better for coding?

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 33.2 versus 27.6 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 131K tokens.

### How many benchmarks do Llama 3.2 3B and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct share?

16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Llama 3.2 3B has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct has 43.