Grok 4.6 (High) vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.6 (High) by SpaceXAI or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning by NVIDIA? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Grok 4.6 (High) scores 31.4 points higher (44.3 vs 12.9) but costs 21× as much to run the benchmark ($1963 vs $92.8; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Grok 4.6 (High) when you need intelligence above 12.9, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning when 12.9 is enough.
| Metric | Grok 4.6 (High) | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.3 | 12.9 | −70.9% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 70.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,962.90 | $92.76 | −95.3% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 95.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 31.72s | 9.16s | −71.1% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 71.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $6.00 | $0.06 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Grok 4.6 (High): 70.9% less intelligence, 95.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 71.1% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.6 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) scores 34.60 for $66.8.
Grok 4.6 (High)Nemotron 3.5 LightningToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-6/nemotron-3-5-lightning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-6/nemotron-3-5-lightning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill