Model comparison
GPT-4.1 nano vs Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 29.3 to 27.9 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 14 shared benchmarks.
MicrosoftSummary
- They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-4.1 nano scores higher in 3 categories and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct in 5 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in instruction following, where GPT-4.1 nano leads 67.8 to 51.9.
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| GPT-4.1 nano | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 27.9 | 29.3 |
| Released | 2025-04-14 | 2024-04-23 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1.05M | — |
| Max output | 33K | — |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.10 | — |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.40 | — |
| Results tracked | 38 | 32 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct leads
GPT-4.1 nano: 24.1 (#330), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.9 (#318)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1306 | 1101 |
| Aider Polyglot | 8.9% | — |
| SciCode | 25.9% | — |
| WeirdML | 19% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 20.3% |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
GPT-4.1 nano: 26.5 (#104), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 33% | — |
Reasoning Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct leads
GPT-4.1 nano: 8.5 (#349), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.8 (#323)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1286 | 1100 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 33.3% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 0% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 15.9% |
| DTBench | 52.5% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 30.3% |
| LMCA | 5.5% | — |
| Adversarial NLI | — | 58.1% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 79.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 129.62 | — |
| HellaSwag | — | 77% |
| LiveBench | — | 24% |
| WinoGrande | — | 81.5% |
Math Too close to call
GPT-4.1 nano: 26.9 (#252), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.6 (#248)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1274 | 1151 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 28.9% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 36.7% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 17.6% |
| MATH Level 5 | 70% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 1% | — |
Knowledge Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct leads
GPT-4.1 nano: 21.8 (#273), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 29.1 (#240)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1272 | 1067 |
| GPQA Diamond | 48.9% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 6% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 55% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 50.7% | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 90.7% |
| MMLU | — | 75.7% |
| OpenBookQA | — | 88% |
| TriviaQA | — | 58.1% |
Multimodal Not comparable
GPT-4.1 nano: 29.2 (#113), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1063 | — |
Multilingual GPT-4.1 nano leads
GPT-4.1 nano: 41.6 (#205), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#272)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1260 | 1058 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1270 | 1061 |
| LMArena German | 1288 | 1080 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1198 | 966 |
| LMArena Russian | 1261 | 1111 |
| LMArena French | — | 1135 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 894 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1111 |
Instruction Following GPT-4.1 nano leads
GPT-4.1 nano: 67.8 (#193), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 51.9 (#292)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1267 | 1087 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 47.2% |
| IFEval | 84.3% | — |
Long Context Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct leads
GPT-4.1 nano: 23.7 (#296), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#267)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1283 | 1088 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 25% | — |
Writing & Preference GPT-4.1 nano leads
GPT-4.1 nano: 40.5 (#243), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.1 (#284)
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 nano | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1285 | 1110 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1260 | 1083 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1277 | 1068 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 946 | — |
| WildBench | 81.2% | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 12.9% |
Frequently asked questions
Is GPT-4.1 nano better than Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct?
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 29.3 to 27.9 on the Noometry Index.
Is GPT-4.1 nano or Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better for coding?
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 27.9 versus 24.1 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do GPT-4.1 nano and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct share?
14 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-4.1 nano has 38 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32.