Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) by NVIDIA? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 48.7 points higher (57.6 vs 8.9) but costs 137× as much to run the benchmark ($8708 vs $63.7; 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 8.9, and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoni… when 8.9 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.6 | 8.9 | −84.5% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 84.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $8,708.20 | $63.74 | −99.3% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 99.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 746.46s | 10.10s | −98.6% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 98.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.05 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 84.5% less intelligence, 99.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 98.6% 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.
- NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) scores 34.50 for $56.4.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill