Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.8 vs Llama 3.2 3B

Claude Opus 4.8 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.7 to 28.9 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.2 3B costs 83× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 4.8's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 14 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 4.8 Anthropic

60.7

Rank #13 Confirmed

Llama 3.2 3B Meta

28.9

Rank #321 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher in 9 categories and Llama 3.2 3B in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Claude Opus 4.8 leads 72.0 to 24.7.
  • Llama 3.2 3B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.33 per million input/output tokens, against $5 / $25 for Claude Opus 4.8.
  • Claude Opus 4.8 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
  • Llama 3.2 3B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Opus 4.8 and Llama 3.2 3B specifications
Claude Opus 4.8Llama 3.2 3B
ProviderAnthropicMeta
Noometry Index60.728.9
Released2026-05-282024-09-24
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M131K
Max output128K118K
Input $ / M tokens$5$0.05
Output $ / M tokens$25$0.33
Results tracked6518

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Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 59.9 (#12), Llama 3.2 3B: 27.6 (#319)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Coding14901098
DeepSWE59%—
FrontierCode46.5%—
LMArena WebDev1556—
SciCode53.5%—
GSO47.1%—
WeirdML82.9%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—23.4%
BigCodeBench Complete—28.3%
ALE-Bench1,564—

Agentic & Tool Use Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 47.6 (#11), Llama 3.2 3B: 20.1 (#143)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Llama 3.2 3B
APEX-Agents48.9%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—21.9%
OSWorld 2.020.6%—
Remote Labor Index8.3%—
τ²-bench Banking39.7%—
DeepResearch Bench50.2%—
PostTrainBench33.8%—
BALROG—10.1%
GBAEval70.9%—
GDP.pdf24%—
LMArena Search1204—
Vending-Bench 25,787—

Reasoning Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 64.7 (#16), Llama 3.2 3B: 21.0 (#228)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Hard Prompts14821095
ARC-AGI-272.1%—
SimpleBench64.8%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark88.8%—
NYT Connections (extended)91.1%—
ARC-AGI-192.5%—
CritPt20.9%—
Chess Puzzles34%—
EnigmaEval23.5%—
EBR-Bench28.6%—
Mystery Game Puzzles36%—
DTBench94.9%—
LMCA57.5%—
Surface Evolver Bench87.5%—
Bench to the Future 30.14—
Epoch Capabilities Index158.21—
ForecastBench59.9—

Math Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 78.4 (#13), Llama 3.2 3B: 32.4 (#214)

Knowledge Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 61.3 (#29), Llama 3.2 3B: 29.7 (#235)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Expert15021090
GPQA Diamond91%—
SimpleQA Verified53%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Opus 4.8: 42.9 (#26), Llama 3.2 3B: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Vision1294—
Blueprint-Bench 214.5%—
Furniture Assembly42.5%—
LMArena Document1475—

Multilingual Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 55.2 (#33), Llama 3.2 3B: 26.2 (#281)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Non-English14501019
LMArena Chinese15071017
LMArena German14721056
LMArena Russian1474949
LMArena French1481—
LMArena Japanese1440—
LMArena Korean1432—
LMArena Spanish1466—

Instruction Following Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 77.4 (#24), Llama 3.2 3B: 56.0 (#275)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Instruction Following14761089

Long Context Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 45.4 (#35), Llama 3.2 3B: 33.4 (#261)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Longer Query14831100

Writing & Preference Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 72.0 (#16), Llama 3.2 3B: 24.7 (#307)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Text14611110
LMArena Creative Writing14541094
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1840595
LMArena Multi-Turn14761105
EQ-Bench 41281—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than Llama 3.2 3B?

Claude Opus 4.8 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.7 to 28.9 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.2 3B costs 83× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 4.8's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 or Llama 3.2 3B?

Llama 3.2 3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.33 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 4.8 lists at $5 and $25.

Is Claude Opus 4.8 or Llama 3.2 3B better for coding?

Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 59.9 versus 27.6 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Opus 4.8 does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 4.8 and Llama 3.2 3B share?

14 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 4.8 has 65 scored results on Noometry and Llama 3.2 3B has 18.

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