GPT-6 Astra (Medium) vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Which is better for the money: GPT-6 Astra (Medium) by OpenAI or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 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
GPT-6 Astra (Medium) scores 36.7 points higher (49.6 vs 12.9) but costs 26× as much to run the benchmark ($2434 vs $92.8; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-6 Astra (Medium) when you need intelligence above 12.9, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning when 12.9 is enough.
| Metric | GPT-6 Astra (Medium) | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.6 | 12.9 | −74.0% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 74.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,434.12 | $92.76 | −96.2% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 96.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.89s | 8.97s | −35.4% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 35.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.06 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs GPT-6 Astra (Medium): 74.0% less intelligence, 96.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 35.4% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GPT-6 Astra (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) scores 34.60 for $66.8.
GPT-6 Astra (Medium)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/gpt-6-astra-medium/nemotron-3-5-lightning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-6-astra-medium/nemotron-3-5-lightning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill