Gemini 2.0 vs OpenAI o1: A December 2024 Showdown

Google's Gemini 2.0 and OpenAI's o1 represent significant advancements in AI, each boasting unique strengths and weaknesses. This article compares their capabilities based on various benchmarks and real-world tests.

Introduction

Both Gemini 2.0 and OpenAI's o1 are powerful large language models (LLMs) released in December 2024, pushing the boundaries of AI capabilities. However, they differ significantly in their architecture, strengths, and intended use cases. This comparison aims to provide a clear understanding of their relative merits.

Benchmarks and Specs

Specification	GPT o1-preview	Gemini 2
Input Context Window	128K	1M
Maximum Output Tokens	65K	X
Knowledge Cutoff	October 2023	August 2024
Release Date	September 12, 2024	December 11, 2024
Tokens/second	23	169.3

The key differences lie in input size, speed, and knowledge cutoff. o1-preview offers a 128K context window, generating 65K tokens at 23 tokens/second, with knowledge cut off in October 2023. Gemini 2 boasts a significantly larger 1M context window, much faster speed (169.3 tokens/second), and a more recent knowledge cutoff (August 2024).

Another benchmark comparison:

Benchmark	GPT o1-preview	Gemini 2
Undergraduate Knowledge (MMLU)	90.8	76.4
Graduate Reasoning (GPQA)	73.3	62.1
Code (Human Eval)	92.4	92.9
Math Problem Solving (MATH)	85.5	89.7
Codeforces Competition	1258	-
Cybersecurity (CTFs)	43.0	-

While Gemini 2 excels in math and code, o1-preview demonstrates superior performance in undergraduate and graduate-level knowledge and reasoning, as well as in code competitions and cybersecurity benchmarks.

Practical Tests

Several practical tests were conducted across various domains: chatting, logical reasoning, creativity, math, algorithms, debugging, and web application development. The results are summarized below:

Test	GPT o1-preview	Gemini 2
Chatting	✅	✅
Logical Reasoning	✅	❌
Creativity	✅	✅
Math	✅	❌
Algorithms	✅	❌
Debugging	✅ (3/5)	✅ (4/5)
Web App	✅ (4/5)	✅ (3/5)

Debugging

Logical Reasoning

Web App

Conclusion

Gemini 2.0 and OpenAI o1 each excel in different areas. o1-preview demonstrates stronger reasoning and knowledge capabilities, while Gemini 2 shows promise in math problem-solving and code generation, along with cost efficiency. The best choice depends heavily on the specific task and priorities.