GPT-5 vs GPT-4o: Is the latest OpenAI model better than its most beloved one?

The newest launch of GPT-5 has taken the world by storm. OpenAI’s latest flagship mannequin has acquired combined opinions – whereas some reward its capabilities, others spotlight its shortcomings. This made me surprise: Is GPT-5 really superior to the unique favourite, GPT-4o?

Personally, GPT-4o was my go-to LLM for all the things from textual content summarization to picture era and knowledge evaluation. Now that OpenAI has changed it with GPT-5, I made a decision to place each fashions to the take a look at. Is that this improve genuinely evolutionary, or a rushed transfer which may diminish ChatGPT’s enchantment?

Let the battle of the GPTs start!

GPT 5 and GPT 4o: A Fast Reminder

Let’s  rapidly dive into particulars concerning the two chatGPT fashions that we’ll be testing on this weblog: GPT-5 and GPT 4o

GPT-5

Launched final week, GPT-5 now stands as ChatGPT’s most superior mannequin. OpenAI’s newest multimodal LLM introduces agentic capabilities and a ‘unified system’ for activity evaluation. This technique mechanically determines whether or not a question requires deep reasoning or fundamental processing. Not like earlier fashions, GPT-5 follows a ‘learn-by-doing’ strategy. It reveals elevated empathy whereas being much less agreeable than its predecessors. Together with this GPT-5 comes with enhanced coding, writing and vibecoding powers

Discover extra in my earlier article on GPT-5.

GPT-4o

Launched final 12 months, GPT-4o (the place “o” means “omni”) was the first-of-its-kind mannequin. This multimodal modified the best way folks used ChatGPT. The mannequin got here with enhanced coding and visible evaluation capabilities. GPT-4o got here with speech recognition and speech evaluation options too. The mannequin got here with elevated processing pace and diminished response latency. OpenAI’s GPT-4o generated extra pure and wise responses, and was in a position to entry instruments and provides real-time info.

To know extra, checkout this text on GPT 4o.

GPT 5 vs GPT 4o: Function Comparability

GPT 5 vs GPT 4o: Process Comparability

Now, let’s put each fashions to the take a look at by evaluating their efficiency on the next duties:

1. Content material creation
2. Picture Era
3. Coding
4. Picture Evaluation
5. Reasoning

Let the GPT-5 vs GPT-4o battle start!

Process 1: Content material Creation

Learn the article at https://www.analyticsvidhya.com/weblog/2024/07/building-agentic-rag-systems-with-langgraph/ to grasp the method of making a vector database for Wikipedia knowledge. Then, present a concise abstract of the important thing steps.”

GPT-5 Response:

GPT-4o Response:

Remark:

The response generated by GPT-5 is the concise abstract that an individual educated on the subject would need. The steps are all listed in correct order and include simply sufficient context. Alternatively, GPT-4o’s response is a abstract of all of the steps talked about within the weblog. It lists all of the steps that have been coated within the weblog in the identical method as mentioned there. The distinction within the strategy of the 2 fashions is: GPT-5 merges the factors to generate a concise abstract of the complete course of, whereas GPT-4o creates a concise abstract of all of the steps coated within the weblog.

Process 2: Picture Era

The picture is of working of a voice agent. It has 3 principal components
Speech-to-text (STT): Captures and converts your spoken phrases into textual content.
Agentic logic: That is your code (or your agent), which figures out the suitable response
Textual content-to-speech (TTS): Converts the agent’s textual content reply again into audio that’s spoken aloud.
Convert this fundamental picture into vibrant picture.

GPT-5 Response:

GPT-4o Response:

Remark:

The duty was easy, and each fashions executed it fairly properly. Beginning with GPT-5, it created a vibrant picture with popping colours. The picture it generated had textual content and icons; nevertheless, there was a minor error – a small arrow connecting the mic icon with the TTS field. As for the picture generated by GPT-4o, it used stable colours, making it much less vibrant. The strengths of GPT-4o’s picture have been the audio enter and output sources that it included.

Process 3: Coding

Fundamental HTML code for a word-counting web site.

GPT-5 Response:

GPT-4o Response:

Remark:

GPT-5 took a while to generate the code for this question, particularly for the phrase counter web site. Nonetheless, the ultimate output was fairly spectacular. The UI/UX and options got here collectively to create a completely purposeful word-counting webpage. Alternatively, GPT-4o’s output felt lackluster as compared. The UI/UX was fundamental, providing solely the core word-counting characteristic with out extra refinements. Its design additionally appeared considerably outdated

Process 4: Picture Evaluation

Calculate the output of this circuit diagram.

GPT-5 Response:

GPT-4o Response:

Remark:

GPT-5 answered this query rapidly, analyzing each the picture and its parts effectively. It accurately recognized the half-wave rectifier, learn the values marked on the diagram, and utilized the correct logic to calculate the output present and voltage values. In distinction, GPT-4o struggled with this activity. Whereas it acknowledged the output waveform, it did not course of different vital elements. Most notably, GPT-4o couldn’t extract the mandatory values from the picture to carry out any calculations.

Process 5: Reasoning

Resolve the next Sudoku and provides the ultimate resolution as a picture.

GPT-5 Response:

GPT-4o Response:

Remark:

GPT-5 initially struggled with picture interpretation, taking up three minutes to course of the enter. Quite than fixing the puzzle independently, it requested affirmation of a number of values throughout the picture. After I manually supplied all of the row values, the mannequin efficiently processed and solved the puzzle, yielding an accurate resolution, although requiring important person help.

GPT-4o, against this, failed to unravel the puzzle completely. It merely populated all lacking values with zeros and offered this as its output resolution.

GPT-5 vs GPT-4o: Ultimate Verdict

Choosing a transparent winner has by no means been more difficult. Right here’s how the 2 LLMs carried out throughout completely different duties:

Is there a transparent winner between the 2? The reply is not any. Efficiency varies considerably by activity:

• GPT-5 dominates in coding and reasoning
• GPT-4o holds its personal in content material creation and picture era/evaluation
• Pace vs. Depth: GPT-4o delivers quicker responses, whereas GPT-5 typically hesitates between thorough evaluation and fast era

Context issues: Do not forget that GPT-4o is a 12 months older. Whereas GPT-5 advantages from newer coaching knowledge and agentic optimizations, is it really groundbreaking in comparison with its predecessor? Not precisely.

Conclusion

Because the world calls for GPT-4o’s comeback, I wholeheartedly agree.

Whereas GPT-5 has improved since Day 1 (now outperforming its Day 3 outcomes), its rushed launch left customers struggling to adapt. The reality is, GPT-5 solely marginally surpasses GPT-4o on particular duties, making it painfully onerous to desert our beloved GPT-4o for one thing that feels merely “a tad higher.” Maybe OpenAI wanted extra rigorous testing earlier than launch. However now that it’s dwell, we are able to solely watch its evolution.

At the moment? I’d signal any petition to carry again GPT-4o. ChatGPT has modified, and never for the higher. Let me know your ideas within the remark part.

PS: I took GPT 4o outputs from our earlier blogs: