DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) by DeepSeek or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning by NVIDIA? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25): 13.2% more intelligence, 79.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 54.5% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.4 | 12.9 | +13.2% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 13.2% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $460.74 | $92.76 | −79.9% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 79.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 19.17s | 8.72s | −54.5% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 54.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $4.00 | $0.06 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) scores 34.60 for $66.8.
DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)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/deepseek-r1-0120/nemotron-3-5-lightning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-r1-0120/nemotron-3-5-lightning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill