GPT-3.5 Turbo vs Databricks Llama 3.1 405B

Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026

GPT-3.5 Turbo

OpenAI

Budget model for simple tasks. Being phased out but still widely used.

Input$0.500/M
Output$1.50/M
Context16K tokens
Best ForSimple chatbots, basic text generation
Benchmark40/100

Databricks Llama 3.1 405B

Databricks

Meta's 405B model hosted on Databricks. Largest open-weight model available for enterprise use.

Input$5.00/M
Output$15.00/M
Context128K tokens
Best ForEnterprise AI, complex reasoning, custom fine-tuning

Cost Comparison by Scenario

Estimated cost per project with 30% cache hit rate. Actual costs may vary based on usage patterns.

ScenarioGPT-3.5 TurboDatabricks Llama 3.1 405BSavings
Small Script (1K lines) $0.06 $0.63 GPT-3.5 Turbo saves $0.56 (90%)
Medium Feature (10K lines) $0.48 $4.75 GPT-3.5 Turbo saves $4.28 (90%)
Large Project (50K lines) $2.38 $23.75 GPT-3.5 Turbo saves $21.38 (90%)
Code Review (5K lines) $0.13 $1.25 GPT-3.5 Turbo saves $1.13 (90%)

Verdict

GPT-3.5 Turbo wins on both price and performance — $0.500/M input with a benchmark score of N/A/100.

For most developers, this is the clear choice between these two models.

Compare with Other Models