Step 3.5 Flash vs Llama 3 70B

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

Step 3.5 Flash is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 66 to 45. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Step 3.5 Flash's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 47.1 against 15.8. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Verified, 48 to 9.

Step 3.5 Flash gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 128K for Llama 3 70B.

Quick Verdict

Pick Step 3.5 Flash if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Llama 3 70B only becomes the better choice if its workflow or ecosystem matters more than the raw scoreboard.

Agentic

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

60.2

Llama 3 70B

41.2

62
Terminal-Bench 2.0
37
66
BrowseComp
48
54
OSWorld-Verified
41

Coding

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

47.1

Llama 3 70B

15.8

77
HumanEval
50
48
SWE-bench Verified
9
45
LiveCodeBench
19
49
SWE-bench Pro
14

Multimodal & Grounded

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

66.7

Llama 3 70B

52.3

64
MMMU-Pro
50
70
OfficeQA Pro
55

Reasoning

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

78.3

Llama 3 70B

59.6

82
SimpleQA
56
82
MuSR
54
83
BBH
74
74
LongBench v2
61
73
MRCRv2
61

Knowledge

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

60.8

Llama 3 70B

42.2

84
MMLU
58
83
GPQA
58
81
SuperGPQA
56
79
OpenBookQA
54
76
MMLU-Pro
55
12
HLE
2
71
FrontierScience
54

Instruction Following

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

87

Llama 3 70B

77

87
IFEval
77

Multilingual

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

82.8

Llama 3 70B

67.5

86
MGSM
72
81
MMLU-ProX
65

Mathematics

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

84.5

Llama 3 70B

63.3

85
AIME 2023
58
87
AIME 2024
60
86
AIME 2025
59
81
HMMT Feb 2023
54
83
HMMT Feb 2024
56
82
HMMT Feb 2025
55
84
BRUMO 2025
57
85
MATH-500
71

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Step 3.5 Flash or Llama 3 70B?

Step 3.5 Flash is ahead overall, 66 to 45. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 48 and 9.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Llama 3 70B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.8 versus 42.2. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Step 3.5 Flash or Llama 3 70B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 47.1 versus 15.8. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Step 3.5 Flash or Llama 3 70B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 84.5 versus 63.3. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Step 3.5 Flash or Llama 3 70B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 78.3 versus 59.6. Inside this category, MuSR is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Llama 3 70B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.2 versus 41.2. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Llama 3 70B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 66.7 versus 52.3. Inside this category, OfficeQA Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Step 3.5 Flash or Llama 3 70B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 87 versus 77. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Llama 3 70B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.8 versus 67.5. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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