Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) vs Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) 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.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) scores 26.8 points higher (49.7 vs 22.9) but costs 9.8× as much to run the benchmark ($5868 vs $596; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 22.9, and Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) when 22.9 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) | Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.7 | 22.9 | −53.9% Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B… is 53.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,867.76 | $596.33 | −89.8% Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B… is 89.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 34.50s | 15.23s | −55.9% Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B… is 55.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.60 / $2.70 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) vs Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh): 53.9% less intelligence, 89.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 55.9% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- 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.
Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh)Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-xhigh/nvidia-nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-xhigh/nvidia-nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill