# Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct vs StarCoder 2 3B

> Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct has enough public results to be ranked (#305); StarCoder 2 3B does not yet, so treat this comparison as directional.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/phi-3-mini-128k-instruct-vs-starcoder-2-3b
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 1

## Summary

- They share 1 benchmark with published results for both. Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct scores higher in 0 categories and StarCoder 2 3B in 1 category; one gap is clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in coding, where StarCoder 2 3B leads 33.5 to 28.8.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is BigCodeBench Complete: 40.6% for Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct and 21.4% for StarCoder 2 3B.

## Snapshot

| | Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct | StarCoder 2 3B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Microsoft | NVIDIA |
| Noometry Index | 29.7 | 36.3 |
| Rank | 305 | — |
| Context | — | — |
| Input $/M | — | — |
| Output $/M | — | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: 28.8 (#312)
- StarCoder 2 3B: 33.5

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct | StarCoder 2 3B |
|---|---|---|
| BigCodeBench Complete | 40.6% | 21.4% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 29.6% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1039 | — |
| HumanEval+ | — | 27.4% |

## Reasoning

- Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: 19.6 (#256)
- StarCoder 2 3B: —

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct | StarCoder 2 3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1028 | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 88.76 |
| WinoGrande | — | 57.1% |

## Math

- Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: 31.6 (#222)
- StarCoder 2 3B: —

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct | StarCoder 2 3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1089 | — |
| GSM8K | — | 21.6% |

## Knowledge

- Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: 26.8 (#254)
- StarCoder 2 3B: —

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct | StarCoder 2 3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 984 | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 34.2% |
| MMLU | — | 36.6% |

## Multilingual

- Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: 25.2 (#285)
- StarCoder 2 3B: —

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct | StarCoder 2 3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1000 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1016 | — |
| LMArena French | 1039 | — |
| LMArena German | 1006 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 899 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 856 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1004 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1059 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: 51.8 (#294)
- StarCoder 2 3B: —

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct | StarCoder 2 3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1023 | — |

## Long Context

- Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: 30.4 (#289)
- StarCoder 2 3B: —

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct | StarCoder 2 3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 996 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct: 27.1 (#301)
- StarCoder 2 3B: —

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct | StarCoder 2 3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1050 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1024 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 989 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct better than StarCoder 2 3B?

Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct has enough public results to be ranked (#305); StarCoder 2 3B does not yet, so treat this comparison as directional.

### Is Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct or StarCoder 2 3B better for coding?

StarCoder 2 3B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 33.5 versus 28.8 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct and StarCoder 2 3B share?

1 benchmark has published results for both models. Phi 3 Mini 128k Instruct has 19 scored results on Noometry and StarCoder 2 3B has 7.