Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) by NVIDIA? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 44.8 points higher (57.6 vs 12.8) but costs 6.6× as much to run the benchmark ($8708 vs $1319; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 12.8, and Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) when 12.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.6 | 12.8 | −77.8% Nemotron 3 Super 120B… is 77.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $8,708.20 | $1,318.62 | −84.9% Nemotron 3 Super 120B… is 84.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 717.42s | 16.68s | −97.7% Nemotron 3 Super 120B… is 97.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.30 / $0.90 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 77.8% less intelligence, 84.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 97.7% 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 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
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-super-120b-a12b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/nvidia-nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill