ChatGPT-4 vs. 3.5: Differences between the two chatbots

The company OpenAI regularly releases new AI language models. These language models form the basis for the ChatGPT chatbot. Two popular AI models from 2023 are the small GPT-3.5 and large GPT-4. GPT-4 is integrated in our own ChatGPT tool from Specht GmbH.

 

While GPT-3.5 is the more cost-efficient version for beginners, GPT-4 is one of the larger AI models for professionals. An even better AI model, GPT-4o, has now been launched on the market.

 

In this article, we take a look at ChatGPT-4 and GPT-3.5 in comparison to each other. Which one is best for which applications?

 

Basic difference between GPT-4 and GPT-3.5

The main difference between GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 lies in the recommended areas of application. Due to the training with a larger amount of data and because of its individual capabilities, GPT-4 is suitable for more areas of application. GPT-3.5 has a slightly reduced range of functions compared to GPT-4, which is why it does not perform well in all applications.

 

GPT-4 is suitable for complex tasks

Over time, GPT-4 has been optimized to GPT-4 Turbo. When we refer to GPT-4 in this article, we mean the newer Turbo model. Due to the higher amount of parameters that GPT-4 Turbo was trained with compared to GPT-3.5, it can solve complex problems better. This AI model also has a higher level of creativity.

 

A special feature of GPT-4 compared to all other AI models - including the newer GPT-4o Mini and GPT-4o models - is its access to data on the Internet. GPT-4 can also access up-to-the-minute data, which is sometimes required to solve complex tasks. This GPT language model, unlike all others, is therefore not limited to training data.

 

All in all, GPT-4 is impressive in the following areas of application, for example:

 

• Research work
• Creative tasks
• Argumentative contents
• Analysis of comprehensive data sets
• Work with a current time reference
• Mathematics
• High-performance applications

 

In addition, unlike GPT-3.5, GPT-4 is able to process visual input. Anyone uploading images, graphics or other visual content can have them analyzed or processed further. This is referred to as multimodal capabilities. GPT-3.5 does not have such features.

 

 

GPT-3.5 is the cost-effective solution for simple tasks

The GPT-3.5 version has lower costs than GPT-4. The cost savings of GPT-3.5 vs. GPT-4 are immense, especially for developers who do not use the ChatGPT chatbot but the OpenAI API. However, users have to accept lower quality for the lower costs.

 

GPT-3.5 is hardly suitable for solving complex tasks due to the small number of parameters used to train the AI language model. There is also a lack of creativity. The lack of multimodal capabilities means that visual input cannot be processed by GPT-3.5.

 

However, GPT-3.5 is ideally suited for dialogs. Anyone using the chatbot ChatGPT can get advice on various topics in the chat, have texts created with a fundamentally good quality and receive answers to simple questions. Developers who use the API for GPT-3.5 Turbo can integrate the AI model into their development environment and use it for first and second-level customer support, for example.

 

Unfortunately, GPT-3.5 does not have access to internet sources, which is why the language model only uses the training data up to September 2021 to generate answers. GPT-4 is superior in this respect, as it not only accesses current data on the internet, but was also trained with data sets up to December 2023.

 

What do both versions have in common?

Both GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 have a context window of 128,000 (128k) tokens. This was different shortly after the release of both language models, when both had only 8,000 tokens. First of all, OpenAI made optimizations to the GPT-4 version and extended the context window to 16k and later 32k tokens. OpenAI later followed suit with a higher context window in GPT-3.5.

 

In the Turbo versions, both AI language models now have 128,000 tokens, which has a positive effect on the quality of the answers. The larger the context window of a language model, the longer the AI can pursue a specific task and deliver qualitative results in a specific context.

 

In relation to the two language models, we now provide some data on the GPT-3.5 model, which caused a sensation among users around the world in 2022/2023:

 

• Context window of 4k tokens
• no possibility to ask several questions on one topic and receive increasingly precise answers (keyword: refinement of prompts)
• Frequent repetition of content when creating texts

 

The progress made in the field of AI chatbots and artificial intelligence since GPT-3 is all too evident in GPT-3.5, GPT-4 and all successor models. All new generations of ChatGPT are capable of working on a wide variety of tasks over long periods of time at a high level of quality.

 

Fine-tuning as an important option for developers

In addition to the large context window, there are other similarities between GPT-4 and GPT-3.5, one of which is of great importance for professional developers who have IT skills and use the OpenAI API: the customization of the language model. OpenAI allows developers to customize the functions of the AI and feed the model with their own data:

 

• The feature for customizing GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 is called "Fine-Tuning".
• To ensure the security of the AI and prevent manipulation, developers must channel the data they want to use to train the bot through an OpenAI network.
• According to OpenAI, it should be possible to raise the GPT model 3.5 to the same level as the GPT-4 model by individually training the AI.

 

Access to the GPT Store for ChatGPT-Plus users

Anyone who takes out a subscription for ChatGPT-Plus can customize GPT-4 not only via the API, as developers and companies do. In ChatGPT-Plus, people without programming knowledge can also customize the chatbot according to their own ideas. There are so-called Custom GPTs for this purpose.

 

GPTs are generative pre-trained transformers. This term can be translated as "language model" in German. You can create your custom GPTs as chatbots in the GPT store. In other words, you create your own ChatGPT - with the only difference being that you train your GPT with your own data or give it certain instructions so that it becomes specialized.

 

Developers can also create their own ChatGPT chatbot in the GPT Store or simply use ChatGPT's underlying language model - for example GPT-4 - and adapt the AI to other specific application areas in their systems. The API makes it easy to connect individual GPTs to your own systems .

 

 

The crux: The AI model GPT-3.5 has been replaced!

All the comments on ChatGPT-3.5 and the integrated GPT-3.5 model are all well and good, but they are hardly relevant anymore, as GPT-3.5 was replaced by the more powerful, multimodal and more cost-effective GPT-4o Mini in July 2024. The new version of GPT is better than its predecessor GPT-3.5 and even cheaper.

 

If you use the ChatGPT chatbot, you can no longer access GPT-3.5. You only have access to this version of GPT as a developer via the API. OpenAI still supports the turbo versions of GPT-3.5 in its API offering, but it remains to be seen how long this will last.

 

The AI language model GPT-4 will remain for even longer

In contrast to GPT-3.5 and the older models based on GPT-3, GPT-4 is still supported by OpenAI. You can use GPT-4 without restrictions with the paid subscription ChatGPT-Plus. If you would like to use GPT-4 free of charge, you can use our ChatGPT tool from Timo Specht as an alternative to the ChatGPT-Plus subscription.

 

While GPT-3.5 has been replaced by GPT-4o Mini, GPT-4 has gained a faster and more cost-efficient competitor in GPT-4o. Nevertheless, it is to be expected that GPT-4 will continue to exist for some time to come.

 

Apart from the fact that GPT-4, like GPT-4o, supports multimodal functions, has a strong context window of 128k tokens and the ability to handle complex instructions, it has its own advantages over the new model.

 

For example, unlike GPT-4o, GPT-4 can access data from the internet and can therefore perform up-to-the-minute tasks better than GPT-4o. Furthermore, GPT-4 was trained with data up to December 2023, whereas GPT-4o was only trained with data up to October 2023.

 

These differences made GPT-4 a popular GPT version despite its higher cost compared to GPT-4o.

 

Conclusion: GPT-4 is one of the best language models, GPT-3.5 is a discontinued model

High costs characterize the GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 models. The combination of low cost efficiency and lower capabilities compared to the competition is enough to give the GPT-3.5 a damning verdict: GPT-3.5 is a discontinued model that is facing its end with the new GPT-4o Mini version.

 

Despite the higher costs in relation to GPT-4o, there are still arguments in favor of using GPT-4. In addition to the newer data set, access to the Internet as a source for new data is a major advantage of GPT-4. Due to this special feature, we definitely recommend the use of GPT-4 to users.

 

We only recommend switching to GPT-4o if the up-to-dateness of the training data and access to new data sets via the Internet are not relevant. This makes even more sense in view of the fact that , according to OpenAI, further improvements to GPT-4o Mini and GPT-4o are due in the coming weeks.

 

Your advantage as a ChatGPT Plus user is that with this subscription you have access to GPT-4, GPT-4o Mini and GPT-4o anyway, so you don't have to choose one of the variants. If you are looking for free access to ChatGPT-4, you can also use our ChatGPT tool from Timo Specht.

 

FAQ: Questions and answers about ChatGPT-3.5 vs. ChatGPT-4

What more can ChatGPT-4 do?

ChatGPT-4 can solve complex and creative tasks better than GPT-3.5. It is a high-performance model that also has more comprehensive capabilities than GPT-3.5. GPT-4 has great advantages over GPT-3.5 in research, analyzing large amounts of data and processing visual input.

 

What can ChatGPT-4o do better?

As a further development of GPT-4, GPT-4o offers largely the same capabilities, but is more cost-effective. For example, developers pay less than half the price for the API with GPT-4o than for the API with GPT-4.

 

In addition, GPT-4o shows massive improvements in output speed: Anyone chatting with ChatGPT receives their replies in less than a second, which is a significant improvement over the sometimes more than 4 seconds waiting time for replies with ChatGPT-4.