Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (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 34.7 points higher (57.6 vs 22.9) but costs 15× as much to run the benchmark ($8708 vs $596; 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 22.9, and Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) when 22.9 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.6 | 22.9 | −60.2% Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B… is 60.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $8,708.20 | $596.33 | −93.2% Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B… is 93.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 717.41s | 15.29s | −97.9% Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B… is 97.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.60 / $2.70 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 60.2% less intelligence, 93.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 97.9% 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 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
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-ultra-550b-a55b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/nvidia-nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill