OpenAI text-embedding-3-large vs OpenAI text-embedding-3-small

Detailed comparison between OpenAI text-embedding-3-large and OpenAI text-embedding-3-small. See which embedding best meets your accuracy and performance needs. If you want to compare these models on your data, try Agentset.

Model Comparison

OpenAI text-embedding-3-large takes the lead.

Both OpenAI text-embedding-3-large and OpenAI text-embedding-3-small are powerful embedding models designed to improve retrieval quality in RAG applications. However, their performance characteristics differ in important ways.

Why OpenAI text-embedding-3-large:

  • OpenAI text-embedding-3-large has 83 higher ELO rating
  • OpenAI text-embedding-3-large delivers better accuracy (nDCG@10: 0.709 vs 0.689)
  • OpenAI text-embedding-3-large has a 12.5% higher win rate

Overview

Key metrics

ELO Rating

Overall ranking quality

OpenAI text-embedding-3-large

1563

OpenAI text-embedding-3-small

1480

Win Rate

Head-to-head performance

OpenAI text-embedding-3-large

56.4%

OpenAI text-embedding-3-small

43.9%

Accuracy (nDCG@10)

Ranking quality metric

OpenAI text-embedding-3-large

0.709

OpenAI text-embedding-3-small

0.689

Average Latency

Response time

OpenAI text-embedding-3-large

18ms

OpenAI text-embedding-3-small

15ms

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Visual Performance Analysis

Performance

ELO Rating Comparison

Win/Loss/Tie Breakdown

Accuracy Across Datasets (nDCG@10)

Latency Distribution (ms)

Breakdown

How the models stack up

MetricOpenAI text-embedding-3-largeOpenAI text-embedding-3-smallDescription
Overall Performance
ELO Rating
1563
1480
Overall ranking quality based on pairwise comparisons
Win Rate
56.4%
43.9%
Percentage of comparisons won against other models
Pricing & Availability
Price per 1M tokens
$0.130
$0.020
Cost per million tokens processed
Dimensions
3072
1536
Vector embedding dimensions (lower is more efficient)
Release Date
2024-01-25
2024-01-25
Model release date
Accuracy Metrics
Avg nDCG@10
0.709
0.689
Normalized discounted cumulative gain at position 10
Performance Metrics
Avg Latency
18ms
15ms
Average response time across all datasets

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import { Agentset } from "agentset";

const agentset = new Agentset();
const ns = agentset.namespace("ns_1234");

const results = await ns.search(
  "What is multi-head attention?"
);

for (const result of results) {
  console.log(result.text);
}

Dataset Performance

By field

Comprehensive comparison of accuracy metrics (nDCG, Recall) and latency percentiles for each benchmark dataset.

business reports

MetricOpenAI text-embedding-3-largeOpenAI text-embedding-3-smallDescription
Accuracy Metrics
nDCG@5
0.000
0.000
Ranking quality at top 5 results
nDCG@10
0.000
0.000
Ranking quality at top 10 results
Recall@5
0.000
0.000
% of relevant docs in top 5
Recall@10
0.000
0.000
% of relevant docs in top 10
Latency Metrics
Mean
21ms
16ms
Average response time
P50
21ms
16ms
50th percentile (median)
P90
21ms
16ms
90th percentile

DBPedia

MetricOpenAI text-embedding-3-largeOpenAI text-embedding-3-smallDescription
Accuracy Metrics
nDCG@5
0.815
0.858
Ranking quality at top 5 results
nDCG@10
0.795
0.807
Ranking quality at top 10 results
Recall@5
0.062
0.062
% of relevant docs in top 5
Recall@10
0.123
0.123
% of relevant docs in top 10
Latency Metrics
Mean
19ms
9ms
Average response time
P50
19ms
9ms
50th percentile (median)
P90
19ms
9ms
90th percentile

FiQa

MetricOpenAI text-embedding-3-largeOpenAI text-embedding-3-smallDescription
Accuracy Metrics
nDCG@5
0.881
0.801
Ranking quality at top 5 results
nDCG@10
0.867
0.814
Ranking quality at top 10 results
Recall@5
0.701
0.624
% of relevant docs in top 5
Recall@10
0.783
0.682
% of relevant docs in top 10
Latency Metrics
Mean
13ms
16ms
Average response time
P50
13ms
16ms
50th percentile (median)
P90
13ms
16ms
90th percentile

SciFact

MetricOpenAI text-embedding-3-largeOpenAI text-embedding-3-smallDescription
Accuracy Metrics
nDCG@5
0.702
0.663
Ranking quality at top 5 results
nDCG@10
0.727
0.684
Ranking quality at top 10 results
Recall@5
0.764
0.774
% of relevant docs in top 5
Recall@10
0.861
0.840
% of relevant docs in top 10
Latency Metrics
Mean
19ms
17ms
Average response time
P50
19ms
17ms
50th percentile (median)
P90
19ms
17ms
90th percentile

MSMARCO

MetricOpenAI text-embedding-3-largeOpenAI text-embedding-3-smallDescription
Accuracy Metrics
nDCG@5
0.956
0.959
Ranking quality at top 5 results
nDCG@10
0.947
0.946
Ranking quality at top 10 results
Recall@5
0.123
0.122
% of relevant docs in top 5
Recall@10
0.223
0.212
% of relevant docs in top 10
Latency Metrics
Mean
28ms
20ms
Average response time
P50
28ms
20ms
50th percentile (median)
P90
28ms
20ms
90th percentile

ARCD

MetricOpenAI text-embedding-3-largeOpenAI text-embedding-3-smallDescription
Accuracy Metrics
nDCG@5
0.829
0.786
Ranking quality at top 5 results
nDCG@10
0.829
0.793
Ranking quality at top 10 results
Recall@5
0.940
0.900
% of relevant docs in top 5
Recall@10
0.940
0.920
% of relevant docs in top 10
Latency Metrics
Mean
10ms
15ms
Average response time
P50
10ms
15ms
50th percentile (median)
P90
10ms
15ms
90th percentile

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