Head-to-head comparison across 2benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking
59
ZAYA1-74B-Preview
54
Pick Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking if you want the stronger benchmark profile. ZAYA1-74B-Preview only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you need the larger 256K context window.
Coding
+16.7 difference
Knowledge
+6.7 difference
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking
ZAYA1-74B-Preview
N/A
$0 / $0
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
128K
256K
Pick Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking if you want the stronger benchmark profile. ZAYA1-74B-Preview only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you need the larger 256K context window.
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 59 to 54. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 69.9 against 53.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is GPQA, 57.6% to 57.3%. ZAYA1-74B-Preview does hit back in knowledge, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
ZAYA1-74B-Preview gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 128K for Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking.
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 59 to 54. The biggest single separator in this matchup is GPQA, where the scores are 57.6% and 57.3%.
ZAYA1-74B-Preview has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 64.3 versus 57.6. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 69.9 versus 53.2. ZAYA1-74B-Preview stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.
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