DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) by DeepSeek or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning by NVIDIA? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) scores 21.4 points higher (34.3 vs 12.9) but costs 2.2× as much to run the benchmark ($200 vs $92.8; both mid-range class). Pick DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Nemotron 3.5 Lightning.
| Metric | DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 34.3 | 12.9 | −62.4% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 62.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $199.63 | $92.76 | −53.5% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 53.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 17.94s | 9.12s | −49.2% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 49.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.14 / $0.28 | $0.06 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max): 62.4% less intelligence, 53.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 49.2% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) scores 41.20 for $158.
- 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 V4 Flash 0731 (Max)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-v4-flash/nemotron-3-5-lightning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v4-flash/nemotron-3-5-lightning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill