# Nova 2 Lite vs Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct

> Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 27.9 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/nova-2-lite-vs-phi-3-mini-4k-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 17

## Summary

- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Nova 2 Lite scores higher in 8 categories and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Nova 2 Lite leads 53.9 to 27.6.
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Nova 2 Lite | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Amazon | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 39.7 | 27.9 |
| Rank | 161 | 328 |
| Context | 1M | — |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | — |
| Output $/M | $2.50 | — |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.6 (#323)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1385 | 1093 |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 15.5% |
| HumanEval+ | — | 59.1% |
| MBPP+ | — | 54.2% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | — |

## Reasoning

- Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 14.1 (#328)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1364 | 1072 |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 26.8% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 34.7% |
| Adversarial NLI | — | 52.8% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 71.7% |
| HellaSwag | — | 76.7% |
| LiveBench | — | 22.4% |
| WinoGrande | — | 70.8% |

## Math

- Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.6 (#257)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1359 | 1111 |
| LiveBench Math | — | 15.7% |

## Knowledge

- Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 28.5 (#246)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1358 | 1045 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 5.1% | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 84.9% |
| MMLU | — | 68.8% |
| OpenBookQA | — | 88% |
| TriviaQA | — | 64% |

## Multilingual

- Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.3 (#280)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1337 | 1021 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1364 | 1021 |
| LMArena French | 1381 | 1076 |
| LMArena German | 1343 | 1044 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1271 | 935 |
| LMArena Korean | 1284 | 905 |
| LMArena Russian | 1343 | 1022 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1373 | 1085 |

## Instruction Following

- Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 47.7 (#303)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1335 | 1053 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 39.1% |

## Long Context

- Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 31.7 (#276)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1335 | 1044 |

## Writing & Preference

- Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 27.6 (#300)

| Benchmark | Nova 2 Lite | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1362 | 1073 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1291 | 1037 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1338 | 1018 |
| LiveBench Language | — | 9.2% |

## FAQ

### Is Nova 2 Lite better than Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct?

Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.7 to 27.9 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Nova 2 Lite or Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct better for coding?

Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.7 versus 26.6 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Nova 2 Lite and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct has 35.