GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh) vs NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh) by OpenAI 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
GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh) scores 29.1 points higher (38.0 vs 8.9) but costs 19× as much to run the benchmark ($1187 vs $63.7; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 8.9, and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoni… when 8.9 is enough.
| Metric | GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh) | NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.0 | 8.9 | −76.6% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 76.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,186.77 | $63.74 | −94.6% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 94.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 31.98s | 10.10s | −68.4% NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nan… is 68.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $12.0 | $0.05 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) vs GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh): 76.6% less intelligence, 94.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 68.4% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh) 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.
GPT-5.6 Terra (Xhigh)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/gpt-5-6-terra-xhigh/nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-6-terra-xhigh/nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill