Compare/Gemma 3 12B Instruct vs GPT-5.4 nano (Non-Reasoning)

Gemma 3 12B InstructvsGPT-5.4 nano (Non-Reasoning)

Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.

Google

Gemma 3 12B Instruct

Input
$0/M
Output
$0/M
Speed
32 tok/s
TTFT
25.36s
OpenAI

GPT-5.4 nano (Non-Reasoning)

Input
$0.2/M
Output
$1.25/M
Speed
177 tok/s
TTFT
0.47s

Winner by Category

Cheaper
Gemma 3 12B Instruct
Faster (tok/s)
GPT-5.4 nano (Non-Reasoning)
Lower Latency
GPT-5.4 nano (Non-Reasoning)
Benchmarks (7-5)
Gemma 3 12B Instruct

Pricing Comparison

MetricGemma 3 12B InstructGPT-5.4 nano (Non-Reasoning)
Input ($/M tokens)$0$0.2
Output ($/M tokens)$0$1.25
Cost for 1M input + 100K output tokens:
Gemma 3 12B Instruct$0.00
GPT-5.4 nano (Non-Reasoning)$0.33

Speed Comparison

Output Speed (tokens/s) — higher is better
Gemma 3 12B Instruct
32 tok/s
GPT-5.4 nano (Non-Reasoning)
177 tok/s
Time to First Token (seconds) — lower is better
Gemma 3 12B Instruct
25.36s
GPT-5.4 nano (Non-Reasoning)
0.47s

Benchmark Comparison

Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks

Intelligence Index
8.824.4
Coding Index
6.327.9
Math Index
18.3
GPQA Diamond
34.9%55.8%
MMLU-Pro
59.5%
LiveCodeBench
13.7%
AIME 2025
18.3%
MATH-500
85.3%
Humanity's Last Exam
4.8%4.2%
SciCode
17.4%35.2%
IFBench
36.7%32.7%
TerminalBench
0.8%24.2%
Gemma 3 12B Instruct7 wins
5 winsGPT-5.4 nano (Non-Reasoning)

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 12B Instruct or GPT-5.4 nano (Non-Reasoning)?

Gemma 3 12B Instruct is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $0.00/M tokens vs $0.46/M for GPT-5.4 nano (Non-Reasoning).

Which model performs better on benchmarks?

Gemma 3 12B Instruct wins 7 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 5 for GPT-5.4 nano (Non-Reasoning). See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.

Which is faster for real-time applications?

GPT-5.4 nano (Non-Reasoning) generates tokens faster at 177 tok/s vs 32 tok/s. However, GPT-5.4 nano (Non-Reasoning) has lower time-to-first-token (0.47s vs 25.36s).

When should I use Gemma 3 12B Instruct vs GPT-5.4 nano (Non-Reasoning)?

Choose based on your priorities: Gemma 3 12B Instruct for lower cost, Gemma 3 12B Instruct for stronger benchmark performance, and GPT-5.4 nano (Non-Reasoning) for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.