Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning by NVIDIA? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 44.7 points higher (57.6 vs 12.9) but costs 94× as much to run the benchmark ($8708 vs $92.8; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 12.9, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning when 12.9 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.6 | 12.9 | −77.6% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 77.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $8,708.20 | $92.76 | −98.9% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 98.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 626.13s | 9.16s | −98.5% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 98.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.06 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 77.6% less intelligence, 98.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 98.5% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) 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.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/nemotron-3-5-lightning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/nemotron-3-5-lightning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill