# Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct vs Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

> Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.5 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/phi-3-small-8k-instruct-vs-qwen2-5-72b-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 23

## Summary

- They share 23 benchmarks with published results for both. Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct in 6 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen2.5 72B Instruct leads 46.9 to 31.3.

## Snapshot

| | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Microsoft | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 28.8 | 31.5 |
| Rank | 310 | 259 |
| Context | — | 131K |
| Input $/M | — | $1.40 |
| Output $/M | — | $5.60 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.4 (#313)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 32.8 (#256)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1102 | 1293 |
| WeirdML | — | 16% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.8% |
| LiveBench Coding | 20.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 55.9% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 22.0 (#124)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| TheAgentCompany | — | 5.7% |
| BALROG | — | 16.2% |
| METR Time Horizons | — | 35.8% |

## Reasoning

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.2 (#319)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 21.4 (#197)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1100 | 1271 |
| BIG-Bench Hard | 79.1% | 79.8% |
| HellaSwag | 77% | 84.8% |
| WinoGrande | 81.5% | 82.3% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 15.9% | — |
| DTBench | — | 62.9% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 30.3% | — |
| LMCA | — | 13.4% |
| Adversarial NLI | 58.1% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 129.01 |
| ForecastBench | — | 57.5 |
| LiveBench | 24% | — |
| PIQA | — | 82.6% |

## Math

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 25.4 (#247)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 18.1 (#281)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1151 | 1283 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 8.1% |
| Omni-MATH | — | 33% |
| LiveBench Math | 17.6% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 63.2% |

## Knowledge

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#237)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 26.9 (#247)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1067 | 1245 |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | 90.7% | 94.5% |
| MMLU | 75.7% | 85.3% |
| TriviaQA | 58.1% | 71.9% |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 49.1% |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 63.1% |
| Confabulations | — | 19.1% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 42.6% |
| OpenBookQA | 88% | — |

## Multilingual

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.6 (#267)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 41.2 (#208)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1058 | 1252 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1061 | 1272 |
| LMArena French | 1134 | 1279 |
| LMArena German | 1080 | 1234 |
| LMArena Japanese | 966 | 1180 |
| LMArena Korean | 894 | 1188 |
| LMArena Russian | 1111 | 1264 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1111 | 1255 |

## Instruction Following

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 52.2 (#287)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 65.7 (#216)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1087 | 1254 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 47.2% | — |
| IFEval | — | 80.6% |

## Long Context

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#262)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 38.9 (#183)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1088 | 1282 |

## Writing & Preference

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.3 (#279)
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: 46.9 (#210)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1110 | 1269 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1083 | 1221 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1068 | 1272 |
| WildBench | — | 80.2% |
| LiveBench Language | 12.9% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better than Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.5 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct or Qwen2.5 72B Instruct better for coding?

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 32.8 versus 27.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct share?

23 benchmarks have published results for both models. Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32 scored results on Noometry and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct has 43.