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Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.6 vs Gemma 4 12B

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 18 shared benchmark results across 6 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

68.59/100
Margin
21.3pts
← winning
47.29/100
1 category wins2 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.6 #16 (Supported); Gemma 4 12B #137 (Estimated). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Claude Opus 4.6 and Gemma 4 12B share 18 comparable benchmark results. 3 of 8 categories are comparable. 28 results are unique to Claude Opus 4.6; 5 to Gemma 4 12B.

Updated July 23, 2026
Shared results
18
Claude Opus 4.6 only
28
Gemma 4 12B only
5
Comparable categories
3 / 8

Pick Claude Opus 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemma 4 12B only becomes the better choice if mathematics is the priority or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 18 shared benchmark results across 6 evidence categories; 3 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.

Why this result

Claude Opus 4.6 is clearly ahead on the BenchAlign aggregate, 68.59 to 47.29. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Claude Opus 4.6's sharpest advantage is in multimodal & grounded, where it averages 77.3 against 69.1. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is GPQA, 91.3% to 78.8%. Gemma 4 12B does hit back in mathematics, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Gemma 4 12B is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude Opus 4.6 is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. Claude Opus 4.6 gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 256K for Gemma 4 12B.

Category breakdown

Exact category averages are shown below. Not measured means BenchLM does not have enough sourced public coverage for that model and category.

Category scores and score margins for Claude Opus 4.6 and Gemma 4 12B
CategoryClaude Opus 4.6ΔGemma 4 12B
MathClaude Opus 4.636.3Margin→ 41.2Gemma 4 12B77.5
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.669.1Margin→ 8.4Gemma 4 12B77.5
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.677.3Margin← 8.2Gemma 4 12B69.1
AgenticClaude Opus 4.673.0MarginNo overlapGemma 4 12BNot measured
CodingClaude Opus 4.668.1MarginNo overlapGemma 4 12BNot measured
ReasoningClaude Opus 4.6Not measuredMarginNo overlapGemma 4 12B43.4

Decisive benchmark drivers

The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.

More
A · Claude Opus 4.6B · Gemma 4 12B

  1. GPQA

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 91.3%B 78.8%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.6Δ 12.5
    GPQA: Claude Opus 4.6 scored 91.3%; Gemma 4 12B scored 78.8%. Claude Opus 4.6 wins this benchmark.

  2. MMMU-Pro

    Multimodal
    Source ↗
    A 77.3%B 69.1%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.6Δ 8.2
    MMMU-Pro: Claude Opus 4.6 scored 77.3%; Gemma 4 12B scored 69.1%. Claude Opus 4.6 wins this benchmark.

  3. MMLU-Pro

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 82%B 77.2%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.6Δ 4.8
    MMLU-Pro: Claude Opus 4.6 scored 82%; Gemma 4 12B scored 77.2%. Claude Opus 4.6 wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.

MetricClaude Opus 4.6Gemma 4 12BComparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Opus 4.6$5 input / $25 outputGemma 4 12BNot availableA complete price comparison is not available.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Opus 4.640 tok/sGemma 4 12BNot availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Opus 4.61.78 sGemma 4 12BNot availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Opus 4.61MGemma 4 12B256KClaude Opus 4.6 lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

Agentic
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Gemma 4 12BResult
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 65.4%—Not comparable
BrowseCompSource 83.7%—Not comparable
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 72.7%—Not comparable
τ²-bench resultsSource 84.8%36.3%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
Claw-EvalSource 70.4%—Not comparable
DeepSearchQASource 73.7%—Not comparable
CyberGymSource 66.6%—Not comparable
Gert LabsSource 61.85%—Not comparable
ResearchClawBenchSource 19.9%—Not comparable
JobBenchSource 36.7%—Not comparable
Coding
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Gemma 4 12BResult
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 80.8%—Not comparable
SWE-bench Verified*Source 75.6%—Not comparable
LiveCodeBench ProSource 70.7%—Not comparable
SWE-bench ProSource 53.4%—Not comparable
SWE-RebenchSource 65.3%—Not comparable
React Native EvalsSource 84.1%—Not comparable
Vibe Code BenchSource 57.57%—Not comparable
AA-SciCodeSource 45.7%38.2%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
FrontierCode 1.1 MainSource 26.9%—Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Gemma 4 12BResult
AA-LCRSource 58.3%55.3%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
CritPtSource 2.8%0.0%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
BBHSource —53%Not comparable
MRCRv2Source —43.4%Not comparable
KnowledgeGemma 4 12B wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Gemma 4 12BResult
GPQASource 91.3%78.8%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
GPQA-DSource 89.2%78.8%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
SuperGPQASource 95%—Not comparable
MMLU-ProSource 82%77.2%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
MMLU-Pro (Arcee)Source 89.1%—Not comparable
HLESource 53%—Not comparable
HLE w/o toolsSource 40%5.2%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
HealthBench HardSource 14.8%—Not comparable
MedXpertQA (Text)Source 52.1%—Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 37.8%22.0%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 84.0%75.3%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
AA-HLESource 18.6%14.8%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource 3.5%-51.9%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 45.2%16.0%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 76.0%80.8%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
MMMLUSource —83.4%Not comparable
MathGemma 4 12B wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Gemma 4 12BResult
AIME25 (Arcee)Source 99.8%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source 40.700%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source 22.900%—Not comparable
AIME26Source —77.5%Not comparable
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.6 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Gemma 4 12BResult
MMMU-ProSource 77.3%69.1%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
ERQASource 51.6%—Not comparable
ScreenSpot ProSource 83.1%—Not comparable
MedXpertQA (MM)Source 64.8%48.7%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
AA-MMMU-ProSource 72.5%69.7%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
Design Arena WebsiteSource 1325—Not comparable
MathVisionSource —79.7%Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Gemma 4 12BResult
AA-IFBenchSource 44.6%73.5%Gemma 4 12B leads
Frequently Asked Questions (4)

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.6 or Gemma 4 12B?

Claude Opus 4.6 is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 68.59 to 47.29. The biggest single separator in this matchup is GPQA, where the scores are 91.3% and 78.8%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Opus 4.6 or Gemma 4 12B?

Gemma 4 12B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 77.5 versus 69.1. Inside this category, AA-Omniscience Index is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Claude Opus 4.6 or Gemma 4 12B?

Gemma 4 12B has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 77.5 versus 36.3. Claude Opus 4.6 stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Claude Opus 4.6 or Gemma 4 12B?

Claude Opus 4.6 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 77.3 versus 69.1. Inside this category, MedXpertQA (MM) is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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