DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) vs Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) by DeepSeek or Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) by NVIDIA? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) scores 14.4 points higher (22.9 vs 8.5) but costs 27× as much to run the benchmark ($697 vs $25.4; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 8.5, and DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) when 8.5 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) | Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 8.5 | 22.9 | +169.4% Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B… is 2.7× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $25.37 | $696.84 | +2646.7% Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B… is 27× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.42s | 15.17s | +22.1% Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B… is 22.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.32 / $0.89 | $0.60 / $2.70 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) vs DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24): 169.4% more intelligence, 2646.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 22.1% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24)Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (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-v3/nvidia-nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v3/nvidia-nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill