Noometry

Model comparison

Nova 2 Lite vs Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct

Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 27.4 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

Nova 2 Lite Amazon

39.0

Rank #161 Confirmed

Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct Microsoft

27.4

Rank #324 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Nova 2 Lite scores higher in 8 categories and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Nova 2 Lite leads 54.1 to 27.7.
  • Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Nova 2 LitePhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
ProviderAmazonMicrosoft
Noometry Index39.027.4
Released2025-12-012024-04-23
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M—
Max output64K—
Input $ / M tokens$0.30—
Output $ / M tokens$2.50—
Results tracked1935

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Category by category

Coding Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 40.1 (#131), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.1 (#319)

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Coding13861093
LiveBench Coding—15.5%
HumanEval+—59.1%
MBPP+—54.2%

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Nova 2 Lite: 23.9 (#114), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: —

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard27.1%—

Reasoning Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 26.4 (#120), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 13.6 (#326)

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Hard Prompts13641072
Chess Puzzles—0%
LiveBench Reasoning—26.8%
LiveBench Data Analysis—34.7%
Adversarial NLI—52.8%
BIG-Bench Hard—71.7%
HellaSwag—76.7%
LiveBench—22.4%
WinoGrande—70.8%

Math Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 34.8 (#154), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 24.5 (#258)

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Math13591111
LiveBench Math—15.7%

Knowledge Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 42.5 (#88), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 27.9 (#241)

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Expert13601045
Vectara Hallucination Rate5.1%—
ARC (AI2) Challenge—84.9%
MMLU—68.8%
OpenBookQA—88%
TriviaQA—64%

Multilingual Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 47.3 (#148), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.5 (#275)

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Non-English13371021
LMArena Chinese13641021
LMArena French13811075
LMArena German13431044
LMArena Japanese1273935
LMArena Korean1284905
LMArena Russian13431022
LMArena Spanish13721084

Instruction Following Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 70.7 (#156), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 48.0 (#298)

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following13351053
LiveBench Instruction Following—39.1%

Long Context Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#145), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 31.7 (#271)

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Longer Query13351044

Writing & Preference Nova 2 Lite leads

Nova 2 Lite: 54.1 (#150), Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 27.7 (#295)

BenchmarkNova 2 LitePhi 3 Mini 4k Instruct
LMArena Text13621073
LMArena Creative Writing12911037
LMArena Multi-Turn13381018
LiveBench Language—9.2%

Frequently asked questions

Is Nova 2 Lite better than Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct?

Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 27.4 on the Noometry Index.

Is Nova 2 Lite or Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct better for coding?

Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.1 versus 26.1 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Nova 2 Lite and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nova 2 Lite has 19 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct has 35.

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