Head-to-head comparison across 1benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
Gemma 4 12B
53
GPT-4.1 nano
26
Pick Gemma 4 12B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. GPT-4.1 nano only becomes the better choice if you need the larger 1M context window or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.
Knowledge
+27.5 difference
Gemma 4 12B
GPT-4.1 nano
N/A
$0.1 / $0.4
N/A
181 t/s
N/A
0.63s
256K
1M
Pick Gemma 4 12B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. GPT-4.1 nano only becomes the better choice if you need the larger 1M context window or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.
Gemma 4 12B is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 53 to 26. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Gemma 4 12B's sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 77.8 against 50.3. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is GPQA, 78.8% to 50.3%.
Gemma 4 12B is the reasoning model in the pair, while GPT-4.1 nano 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. GPT-4.1 nano gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 256K for Gemma 4 12B.
Gemma 4 12B is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 53 to 26. The biggest single separator in this matchup is GPQA, where the scores are 78.8% and 50.3%.
Gemma 4 12B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 77.8 versus 50.3. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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