Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Which is better for the money: Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) by Anthropic or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning by NVIDIA? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) scores 28.3 points higher (41.2 vs 12.9) but costs 1.7× as much to run the benchmark ($158 vs $92.6; both mid-range class). Pick Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Nemotron 3.5 Lightning.
| Metric | Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.2 | 12.9 | −68.7% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 68.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $157.58 | $92.58 | −41.2% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 41.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 69.98s | 8.73s | −87.5% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 87.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.50 | $0.06 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh): 68.7% less intelligence, 41.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 87.5% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) scores 34.60 for $66.8.
Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh)Nemotron 3.5 LightningToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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