Granite 4.2 3B vs Nemotron 3.5 Super VL
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 3B by IBM or Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 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 3.5 Super VL scores 17.4 points higher (26.5 vs 9.1) but costs 19× as much to run the benchmark ($286 vs $14.9; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Nemotron 3.5 Super VL when you need intelligence above 9.1, and Granite 4.2 3B when 9.1 is enough.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 3B | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.1 | 26.5 | +191.2% Nemotron 3.5 Super VL is 2.9× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $14.91 | $286.07 | +1818.6% Nemotron 3.5 Super VL is 19× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 62.62s | 6.31s | −89.9% Nemotron 3.5 Super VL is 89.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.03 / $0.12 | $0.23 / $0.57 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL vs Granite 4.2 3B: 191.2% more intelligence, 1818.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 89.9% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Granite 4.2 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Nemotron 3.5 Super VL is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Granite 4.2 3BNemotron 3.5 Super VLToday'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/granite-4-2-3b/nemotron-3-5-super-vl · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-3b/nemotron-3-5-super-vl?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill