Model comparison

GPT-4.1 nano vs Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct

GPT-4.1 nano and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct score almost the same on the Noometry Index (27.9 vs 27.9), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

Last verified . 14 shared benchmarks.

GPT-4.1 nano OpenAI

27.9

Rank #327 Confirmed

Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct Microsoft

27.9

Rank #328 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-4.1 nano scores higher in 4 categories and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct in 4 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in instruction following, where GPT-4.1 nano leads 67.8 to 47.7.
  • Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-4.1 nano and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct specifications
GPT-4.1 nanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
ProviderOpenAIMicrosoft
Noometry Index27.927.9
Released2025-04-142024-04-23
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M—
Max output33K—
Input $ / M tokens$0.10—
Output $ / M tokens$0.40—
Results tracked3835

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Category by category

Coding Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct leads

GPT-4.1 nano: 24.1 (#330), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.6 (#323)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Coding13061093
Aider Polyglot8.9%—
SciCode25.9%—
WeirdML19%—
LiveBench Coding—15.5%
HumanEval+—59.1%
MBPP+—54.2%

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

GPT-4.1 nano: 26.5 (#104), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard33%—

Reasoning Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct leads

GPT-4.1 nano: 8.5 (#349), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 14.1 (#328)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Hard Prompts12861072
ARC-AGI-20%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark33.3%—
ARC-AGI-10%—
CritPt0%—
Chess Puzzles—0%
LiveBench Reasoning—26.8%
DTBench52.5%—
LiveBench Data Analysis—34.7%
LMCA5.5%—
Adversarial NLI—52.8%
BIG-Bench Hard—71.7%
Epoch Capabilities Index129.62—
HellaSwag—76.7%
LiveBench—22.4%
WinoGrande—70.8%

Math Too close to call

GPT-4.1 nano: 26.9 (#252), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.6 (#257)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Math12741111
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202528.9%—
Omni-MATH36.7%—
LiveBench Math—15.7%
MATH Level 570%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)1%—

Knowledge Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct leads

GPT-4.1 nano: 21.8 (#273), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 28.5 (#246)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Expert12721045
GPQA Diamond48.9%—
SimpleQA Verified6%—
MMLU-Pro55%—
GPQA (HELM)50.7%—
ARC (AI2) Challenge—84.9%
MMLU—68.8%
OpenBookQA—88%
TriviaQA—64%

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-4.1 nano: 29.2 (#113), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Vision1063—

Multilingual GPT-4.1 nano leads

GPT-4.1 nano: 41.6 (#205), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.3 (#280)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Non-English12601021
LMArena Chinese12701021
LMArena German12881044
LMArena Japanese1198935
LMArena Russian12611022
LMArena French—1076
LMArena Korean—905
LMArena Spanish—1085

Instruction Following GPT-4.1 nano leads

GPT-4.1 nano: 67.8 (#193), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 47.7 (#303)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following12671053
LiveBench Instruction Following—39.1%
IFEval84.3%—

Long Context Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct leads

GPT-4.1 nano: 23.7 (#296), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 31.7 (#276)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Longer Query12831044
Fiction.LiveBench25%—

Writing & Preference GPT-4.1 nano leads

GPT-4.1 nano: 40.5 (#243), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 27.6 (#300)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 nanoPhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Text12851073
LMArena Creative Writing12601037
LMArena Multi-Turn12771018
EQ-Bench Creative Writing946—
WildBench81.2%—
LiveBench Language—9.2%

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-4.1 nano better than Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct?

GPT-4.1 nano and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct score almost the same on the Noometry Index (27.9 vs 27.9), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

Is GPT-4.1 nano or Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct better for coding?

Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 26.6 versus 24.1 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do GPT-4.1 nano and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct share?

14 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-4.1 nano has 38 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct has 35.

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