Gemma 4 E2B vs Llama 3.1 405B

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

Agentic
Coding
Multimodal & Grounded
Reasoning
Knowledge
Instruction Following
Multilingual
Mathematics

Gemma 4 E2B· Llama 3.1 405B

Quick Verdict

Pick Llama 3.1 405B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemma 4 E2B only becomes the better choice if coding is the priority or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.

Llama 3.1 405B is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 53 to 39. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Llama 3.1 405B's sharpest advantage is in reasoning, where it averages 66.6 against 19.1. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is BBH, 21.9% to 82%. Gemma 4 E2B does hit back in coding, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Gemma 4 E2B is the reasoning model in the pair, while Llama 3.1 405B 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.

Operational tradeoffs

ProviderGoogleMeta
PriceFree*Free*
SpeedN/A29 t/s
TTFTN/A2.19s
Context128K128K

Decision framing

BenchLM keeps the benchmark table and the operator tradeoffs on the same page so a better score does not hide a materially slower, pricier, or smaller-context model.

Runtime metrics show N/A when BenchLM does not have a sourced snapshot for that exact model. The scoring rules and freshness policy are documented on the methodology page.

BenchmarkGemma 4 E2BLlama 3.1 405B
Agentic
Terminal-Bench 2.053%
CodingGemma 4 E2B wins
LiveCodeBench44%37%
HumanEval62%
SWE-bench Verified46%
SWE-bench Pro43%
Multimodal & GroundedLlama 3.1 405B wins
MMMU-Pro44.2%
OfficeQA Pro65%
ReasoningLlama 3.1 405B wins
BBH21.9%82%
MRCRv219.1%65%
LongBench v268%
KnowledgeLlama 3.1 405B wins
GPQA43.4%70%
MMLU-Pro60%71%
MMLU70%
SuperGPQA68%
HLE7%
FrontierScience65%
SimpleQA68%
Instruction Following
IFEval86%
Multilingual
MMLU-ProX78%
Mathematics
AIME 202370%
AIME 202472%
HMMT Feb 202468%
MATH-50082%
Frequently Asked Questions (5)

Which is better, Gemma 4 E2B or Llama 3.1 405B?

Llama 3.1 405B is ahead overall, 53 to 39. The biggest single separator in this matchup is BBH, where the scores are 21.9% and 82%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Gemma 4 E2B or Llama 3.1 405B?

Llama 3.1 405B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 54.3 versus 54.1. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Gemma 4 E2B or Llama 3.1 405B?

Gemma 4 E2B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 44 versus 41.4. Inside this category, LiveCodeBench is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Gemma 4 E2B or Llama 3.1 405B?

Llama 3.1 405B has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 66.6 versus 19.1. Inside this category, BBH is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Gemma 4 E2B or Llama 3.1 405B?

Llama 3.1 405B has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 65 versus 44.2. Gemma 4 E2B stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.

Last updated: April 2, 2026

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