# Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct vs Phi-4

> Phi-4 is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.2 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/phi-3-small-8k-instruct-vs-phi-4
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 25

## Summary

- They share 25 benchmarks with published results for both. Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct scores higher in 1 category and Phi-4 in 7 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Phi-4 leads 40.5 to 31.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is LiveBench Reasoning: 15.9% for Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct and 47.8% for Phi-4.

## Snapshot

| | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Microsoft | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 29.3 | 31.2 |
| Rank | 314 | 279 |
| Context | — | 128K |
| Input $/M | — | $0.07 |
| Output $/M | — | $0.14 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.9 (#318)
- Phi-4: 34.4 (#239)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Coding | 20.3% | 30.7% |
| LMArena Coding | 1101 | 1231 |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.5% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 55.4% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —
- Phi-4: 22.8 (#128)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 28.8% |
| BALROG | — | 11.6% |

## Reasoning

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.8 (#323)
- Phi-4: 17.7 (#291)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Reasoning | 15.9% | 47.8% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1100 | 1220 |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 30.3% | 45.2% |
| LiveBench | 24% | 41.6% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 1% |
| Adversarial NLI | 58.1% | — |
| BIG-Bench Hard | 79.1% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 130.42 |
| HellaSwag | 77% | — |
| WinoGrande | 81.5% | — |

## Math

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.6 (#248)
- Phi-4: 20.8 (#285)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Math | 17.6% | 42% |
| LMArena Math | 1151 | 1246 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 13.8% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 64.9% |

## Knowledge

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 29.1 (#240)
- Phi-4: 32.6 (#209)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1067 | 1203 |
| MMLU | 75.7% | 84.8% |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 56.1% |
| Confabulations | — | 29.4% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 3.7% |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | 90.7% | — |
| OpenBookQA | 88% | — |
| TriviaQA | 58.1% | — |

## Multilingual

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#272)
- Phi-4: 37.2 (#237)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1058 | 1197 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1061 | 1212 |
| LMArena French | 1135 | 1224 |
| LMArena German | 1080 | 1222 |
| LMArena Japanese | 966 | 1158 |
| LMArena Korean | 894 | 1151 |
| LMArena Russian | 1111 | 1209 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1111 | 1234 |

## Instruction Following

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 51.9 (#292)
- Phi-4: 60.4 (#251)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 47.2% | 58.4% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1087 | 1201 |

## Long Context

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#267)
- Phi-4: 36.9 (#226)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1088 | 1217 |

## Writing & Preference

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.1 (#284)
- Phi-4: 40.5 (#244)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1110 | 1217 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1083 | 1182 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1068 | 1206 |
| LiveBench Language | 12.9% | 25.6% |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 62.6% |

## FAQ

### Is Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better than Phi-4?

Phi-4 is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.2 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct or Phi-4 better for coding?

Phi-4 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 34.4 versus 27.9 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct and Phi-4 share?

25 benchmarks have published results for both models. Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32 scored results on Noometry and Phi-4 has 37.