GPT-3.5 Turbo vs Qwen2 72B Instruct
Qwen2 72B Instruct leads the LLM Stats Score 5.8 to -9.4.
OpenAI · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Qwen2 72B Instruct leads the overall LLM Stats Score 5.8 to -9.4, ranking #300 overall.
In the 4 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Qwen2 72B Instruct wins 4; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose GPT-3.5 Turbo
- you want predictable pricing at $0.50/M input and $1.50/M output
Choose Qwen2 72B Instruct
- overall performance matters — it scores 5.8 and ranks #300 on LLM Stats
- your work emphasizes reasoning — it leads those capability indexes
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 4 of 4 exact shared results
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jul 2024
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
8 reported for GPT-3.5 Turbo · 17 for Qwen2 72B Instruct
GPT-3.5 Turbo outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Qwen2 72B Instruct is better at 4 benchmarks (GPQA, HumanEval, MATH, MMLU).
Qwen2 72B Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only GPT-3.5 Turbo specifies input context (16,385 tokens). Only GPT-3.5 Turbo specifies output context (4,096 tokens).
License
Usage and distribution terms
GPT-3.5 Turbo is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen2 72B Instruct uses tongyi-qianwen.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
tongyi-qianwen
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
GPT-3.5 Turbo was released on 2023-03-21, while Qwen2 72B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23.
Qwen2 72B Instruct is 16 months newer than GPT-3.5 Turbo.
Mar 21, 2023
3.5 years ago
Jul 23, 2024
2.2 years ago
1.3yr newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
GPT-3.5 Turbo has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2021-09-30, while Qwen2 72B Instruct's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm GPT-3.5 Turbo's training data extends to 2021-09-30, but cannot make a direct comparison without Qwen2 72B Instruct's cutoff date.
Sep 2021
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Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against GPT-3.5 Turbo and Qwen2 72B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about GPT-3.5 Turbo vs Qwen2 72B Instruct.