Introduction

On July 23rd, 2024, Meta released its latest flagship model, Llama 3.1 405B, along with smaller variants: Llama 3.1 70B and Llama 3.1 8B. This release came just three months after the introduction of Llama 3. While Llama 3.1 405B outperforms GPT-4 and Claude 3 Opus in most benchmarks, making it the most powerful open-source model available, it may not be the optimal choice for many real-world applications due to its slow generation time and high Time to First Token (TTFT).

For developers looking to integrate these models into production or self-host them, Llama 3.1 70B emerges as a more practical alternative. But how does it compare to its predecessor, Llama 3 70B? Is it worth upgrading if you’re already using Llama 3 70B in production?

In this blog post, we’ll conduct a detailed comparison between Llama 3.1 70B and Llama 3 70B, examining their performance, efficiency, and suitability for various use cases. Our goal is to help you make an informed decision about which model best fits your needs.

Also Read: Meta Llama 3.1: Latest Open-Source AI Model Takes on GPT-4o mini

Overview

• Llama 3.1 70B: Best for tasks requiring extensive context, long-form content generation, and complex document analysis.
• Llama 3 70B: Excels in speed, making it ideal for real-time interactions and quick response applications.
• Benchmark Performance: Llama 3.1 70B outperforms Llama 3 70B in most benchmarks, particularly in mathematical reasoning.
• Speed Trade-Off: Llama 3 70B is significantly faster, with lower latency and quicker token generation.

Llama 3 70B vs Llama 3.1 70B

Basic Comparison

Here’s a basic comparison between the two models.