Gemma 4 31B vs GPT-5.2

Overview: Across our 12-test suite comparisons, GPT-5.2 wins 3 benchmarks, Gemma 4 31B wins 2, and the remaining tests tie. Detailed callouts: 1) Creative problem solving — GPT-5.2 scores 5 vs Gemma 4; GPT-5.2 ranks tied for 1st (rank 1 of 54, tied with 7), Gemma ranks 9 of 54. Expect GPT-5.2 to produce more non-obvious feasible ideas in ideation/strategy tasks. 2) Long-context — GPT-5.2 scores 5 vs Gemma 4; GPT-5.2 is tied for 1st on long context while Gemma sits much lower (rank 38 of 55). For retrieval and coherence across 30K+ tokens, GPT-5.2 is the safer pick; note GPT-5.2 also exposes a larger context window (400,000 vs Gemma's 262,144). 3) Safety calibration — GPT-5.2 scores 5 vs Gemma 2; GPT-5.2 is tied for 1st on safety calibration (strong refusal/allow behavior in our tests), while Gemma is mid-pack (rank 12 of 55). Use GPT-5.2 where strict refusal behavior is required. 4) Structured output — Gemma 4 31B scores 5 vs GPT-5.2's 4; Gemma ties for 1st on structured output, GPT-5.2 ranks 26 of 54. Gemma is better at JSON-schema compliance and format adherence. 5) Tool calling — Gemma scores 5 vs GPT-5.2's 4; Gemma is tied for 1st in tool calling while GPT-5.2 ranks 18 of 54. Expect more reliable function selection, argument correctness, and sequencing from Gemma in our tests. 6) Strategic analysis, constrained rewriting, classification, persona consistency, faithfulness, agentic planning, and multilingual — largely ties (both models score equally on these), with both models ranking at or near the top for many of these categories. External benchmarks: GPT-5.2 posts 73.8% on SWE-bench Verified and 96.1% on AIME 2025 (Epoch AI); these are external signals favoring GPT-5.2 on coding and high-level math. Gemma has no external SWE/AIME scores in the payload. In short, choose GPT-5.2 when safety, long-context recall, or creative problem solving drive value; choose Gemma 4 31B when structured outputs and tool-calling reliability (and much lower cost) matter.

Raw model IO costs diverge dramatically: Gemma 4 31B charges $0.13 input / $0.38 output per 1k tokens; GPT-5.2 charges $1.75 input / $14.00 output per 1k tokens. Output-only monthly costs: 1M tokens (1,000 mTok) = Gemma $380 vs GPT-5.2 $14,000; 10M = Gemma $3,800 vs GPT-5.2 $140,000; 100M = Gemma $38,000 vs GPT-5.2 $1,400,000. If you account for equal input+output volume (input = output), multiply per-mTok by (input+output): Gemma $0.51/mTok → 1M tokens = $510; GPT-5.2 $15.75/mTok → 1M tokens = $15,750. The gap matters for high-volume apps (mobile, SaaS, customer chat, analytics pipelines), where Gemma can cut monthly inference bills by an order of magnitude. Pay the GPT-5.2 premium when its higher scores on safety, long-context, or creative problem solving materially reduce developer time or downstream risk.

Choose Gemma 4 31B if you need: - Low-cost production inference (output $0.38 per 1k tokens) for high-volume apps, and strong structured-output (5/5) and tool-calling (5/5) performance for APIs that rely on JSON schemas, function calls, or deterministic outputs. Choose GPT-5.2 if you need: - Top-ranked safety calibration (5/5), long-context retrieval (5/5) with a 400k window, and stronger creative problem solving (5/5), and you can accept the large price premium ($14 per 1k output tokens) because those gains reduce human review, failure modes, or engineering overhead.