Gemma 3 27B vs Llama 3.1 70B Instruct
Llama 3.1 70B Instruct leads Gemma 3 27B on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 6.6 to 4.9, and Gemma 3 27B costs 1.9x less per output token ($0.30 vs $0.56 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 43 benchmarks have a result for both.
Gemma 3 27B or Llama 3.1 70B Instruct: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Gemma 3 27B for output tokens 1.9x cheaper ($0.30 vs $0.56 per million) and work measured by LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) or AA Intelligence Index, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 43
- Gemma 3 27B only
- 23
- Llama 3.1 70B Instruct only
- 4
- Like-for-like categories
- 7 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Neither has a coding score yet.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Llama 3.1 70B Instruct
Llama 3.1 70B Instruct leads, 6.6 against 4.9.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Gemma 3 27B has a AA Agentic Index result, 0.1.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
No call
Both take 131K tokens.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Gemma 3 27B
Gemma 3 27B $0.0002, Llama 3.1 70B Instruct $0.0008 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Gemma 3 27B not benchmarked, Llama 3.1 70B Instruct not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Math, 18.7 points apart on average over 6 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- MATH level 5: Gemma 3 27B 74.0% against Llama 3.1 70B Instruct 36.7%, 37.4 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Gemma 3 27B $0.30 against Llama 3.1 70B Instruct $0.56 per million output tokens, 1.9x apart.
- Context window
- Both take 131K tokens.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Gemma 3 27B | Bars | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 3 | 1 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 1 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 5 | 1 | ||
| Math | 6 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 4 | 1 | ||
| General | 16 | 3 | ||
| All shared boards | 35 | 8 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index31
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aider polyglot | 4.9% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| AA Coding Index | 10.1 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 13.7% | 23.2% | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct |
| SciCode | 23.3% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 3.8% | 3.0% | Gemma 3 27B |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 9.0% | Only Llama 3.1 70B Instruct measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1322 | 1260 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1354 | 1260 | Gemma 3 27B |
| SciCode | 0.0% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 30 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 4.9 | 6.6 | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 130.0 | 125.9 | Gemma 3 27B |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 0.1 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 10.5% | 15.2% | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct |
| BALROG | Not measured | 27.9% | Only Llama 3.1 70B Instruct measured |
| TheAgentCompany | Not measured | 6.9% | Only Llama 3.1 70B Instruct measured |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) | 29.5% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 36 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index51
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 42.8% | 40.9% | Gemma 3 27B |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 4.4% | 4.5% | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 47.7% | 44.2% | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1340 | 1241 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1304 | 1209 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1353 | 1261 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1156 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1160 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 35.1% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index60
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | 20.7 | 4.0 | Gemma 3 27B |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 20.7% | 4.0% | Gemma 3 27B |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 22.5% | 3.6% | Gemma 3 27B |
| MATH level 5 | 74.0% | 36.7% | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: math | 1312 | 1252 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1327 | 1253 | Gemma 3 27B |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index41
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 66.9% | 67.6% | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct |
| MMLU | Not measured | 80.1% | Only Llama 3.1 70B Instruct measured |
| GeoBench | 52.0% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1383 | 1276 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1391 | 1257 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1375 | 1283 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1360 | 1235 | Gemma 3 27B |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | 29.1% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
Web designNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 9 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index163
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 31.8% | 34.4% | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 7.3% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| DTBench | 52.5% | 60.0% | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct |
| LMCA | 12.3% | 14.8% | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 33.3% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| Creative writing (Lech Mazur) | 79.9% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Text | 1358 | 1261 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1321 | 1231 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1345 | 1232 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Vision | 1165 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1377 | 1294 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1334 | 1219 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1346 | 1215 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: German | 1362 | 1222 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1287 | 1132 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1308 | 1140 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: French | 1368 | 1262 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1349 | 1253 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1349 | 1234 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1345 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1345 | 1256 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1333 | 1241 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1347 | 1236 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1320 | 1230 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1188 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1164 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1156 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1166 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | 1151 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1196 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1177 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Gemma 3 27B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Gemma 3 27B costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Gemma 3 27B costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Google Gemma 3 27B | Meta Llama 3.1 70B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Meta Llama | |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | March 12, 2025 | July 23, 2024 |
| Context window | 131K | 131K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.08 | $0.56 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.30 | $0.56 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Gemma 3 27B better than Llama 3.1 70B Instruct for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Gemma 3 27B for output tokens 1.9x cheaper ($0.30 vs $0.56 per million) and work measured by LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) or AA Intelligence Index, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 27B or Llama 3.1 70B Instruct?
Gemma 3 27B costs $0.08 per million input tokens and $0.30 per million output tokens; Llama 3.1 70B Instruct costs $0.56 and $0.56. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Gemma 3 27B or Llama 3.1 70B Instruct?
Neither: both take 131K tokens.
How many benchmarks is the Gemma 3 27B vs Llama 3.1 70B Instruct comparison based on?
43 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Gemma 3 27B's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Llama 3.1 70B Instruct's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.