Claude Opus 5 (Low) vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Low) 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.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Low) scores 26.5 points higher (39.4 vs 12.9) but costs 17× as much to run the benchmark ($1561 vs $92.8; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Low) when you need intelligence above 12.9, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning when 12.9 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Low) | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.4 | 12.9 | −67.3% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 67.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,560.91 | $92.76 | −94.1% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 94.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.79s | 9.16s | −22.3% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 22.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.06 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Claude Opus 5 (Low): 67.3% less intelligence, 94.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 22.3% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- 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 Opus 5 (Low)Nemotron 3.5 LightningToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-low/nemotron-3-5-lightning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-low/nemotron-3-5-lightning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill