GLM-5.2 (Max) vs NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: GLM-5.2 (Max) by Z AI 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 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GLM-5.2 (Max) scores 24.8 points higher (33.7 vs 8.9) but costs 30× as much to run the benchmark ($1896 vs $63.7; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GLM-5.2 (Max) when you need intelligence above 8.9, and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoni… when 8.9 is enough.
| Metric | GLM-5.2 (Max) | NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 33.7 | 8.9 | −73.6% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 73.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,896.44 | $63.74 | −96.6% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 96.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 30.09s | 10.29s | −65.8% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 65.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.40 / $4.40 | $0.05 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) vs GLM-5.2 (Max): 73.6% less intelligence, 96.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 65.8% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GLM-5.2 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- 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.
GLM-5.2 (Max)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/glm-5-2/nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/glm-5-2/nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill