Head-to-head comparison across 4benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
Gemma 4 12B
53
GPT-5.2
79
Pick GPT-5.2 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemma 4 12B only becomes the better choice if coding is the priority.
Coding
+7.3 difference
Reasoning
+9.5 difference
Knowledge
+14.6 difference
Multimodal
+11.2 difference
Gemma 4 12B
GPT-5.2
N/A
$1.75 / $14
N/A
73 t/s
N/A
130.34s
256K
400K
Pick GPT-5.2 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemma 4 12B only becomes the better choice if coding is the priority.
GPT-5.2 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 79 to 53. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
GPT-5.2's sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 92.4 against 77.8. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is GPQA, 78.8% to 92.4%. Gemma 4 12B does hit back in coding, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
GPT-5.2 gives you the larger context window at 400K, compared with 256K for Gemma 4 12B.
GPT-5.2 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 79 to 53. The biggest single separator in this matchup is GPQA, where the scores are 78.8% and 92.4%.
GPT-5.2 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 92.4 versus 77.8. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Gemma 4 12B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 72 versus 64.7. GPT-5.2 stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.
GPT-5.2 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 52.9 versus 43.4. Gemma 4 12B stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.
GPT-5.2 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 80.3 versus 69.1. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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