DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) vs NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) by DeepSeek or NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (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
DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) scores 2.5 points higher (11.4 vs 8.9) but costs 7.2× as much to run the benchmark ($461 vs $63.7; both mid-range class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) when you need intelligence above 8.9, and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoni… when 8.9 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) | NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.4 | 8.9 | −21.9% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 21.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $460.74 | $63.74 | −86.2% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 86.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 18.43s | 10.12s | −45.1% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 45.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $4.00 | $0.05 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) vs DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25): 21.9% less intelligence, 86.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 45.1% faster end-to-end.
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.
- NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) scores 34.50 for $56.4.
DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning)Today'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/nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-r1-0120/nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill