# Gemma 4 12B vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Gemma 4 12B and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/gemma-4-12b-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4
- Last updated: September 24, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 4
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.7

## Quick Verdict

Pick Gemma 4 12B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Gemma 4 12B leads overall 28.47 to 19.1.
- The clearest category separation is in reasoning, where the averages are 34.7 for Gemma 4 12B and 55.9 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is HLE w/o tools in Knowledge, with scores of 5.2% and 10.5%.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Gemma 4 12B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Google | NVIDIA |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 256K | 1M |
| Overall Score | 28.47 | 19.1 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 12 | 13 |
| Pricing (input/output) | N/A | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Not comparable
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 7.3 (Estimated · #104/105)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 23.5% | Coming soon |
| PinchBench | Coming soon | 83.4% | Coming soon |
| BrowseComp | Coming soon | 36.8% | Coming soon |
| τ³-bench results | Coming soon | 9.5% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Directional only
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 22 (Estimated · #110/135)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 11.4 (Estimated · #135/135)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 72.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Verified | Coming soon | 52.8% | Coming soon |
| SWE Multilingual | Coming soon | 36.5% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 23.5% | Coming soon |
| SciCode | Coming soon | 31.4% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 34.7 (Unranked · 4 rankable rows)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 55.9 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| BBH | 53% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MRCRv2 | 43.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 26.2 (#46/50)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMMU-Pro | 69.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MathVision | 79.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MedXpertQA (MM) | 48.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Directional only
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 31.1 (Supported · #125/158)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 20.7 (Estimated · #154/158)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 78.8% | 75.6% | Gemma 4 12B |
| GPQA-D | 78.8% | 75.6% | Gemma 4 12B |
| MMLU-Pro | 77.2% | 81.6% | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 |
| HLE w/o tools | 5.2% | 10.5% | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 |
| MMMLU | 83.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Directional only
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 88.7 (#22/124)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 68.5 (#67/124)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | Coming soon | 72.9% | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 53 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME26 | 77.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Gemma 4 12B or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4?

Gemma 4 12B is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Gemma 4 12B and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4?

The widest category gap is in reasoning, where the averages are 34.7 for Gemma 4 12B and 55.9 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4.

### How many benchmarks does Gemma 4 12B cover on BenchLM?

Gemma 4 12B currently has 12 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 cover on BenchLM?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 currently has 13 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Gemma 4 12B vs Gemma 4 26B A4B](/compare/gemma-4-12b-vs-gemma-4-26b-a4b)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 vs Gemma 4 26B A4B](/compare/gemma-4-26b-a4b-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)
- [Gemma 4 12B vs Gemma 4 31B](/compare/gemma-4-12b-vs-gemma-4-31b)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 vs Gemma 4 31B](/compare/gemma-4-31b-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)

## Explore More

- [Gemma 4 12B profile](/models/gemma-4-12b)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 profile](/models/nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)