Mercury 2 vs Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2 by Inception or Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (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
Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) scores 12.1 points higher (22.9 vs 10.8) but costs 3.4× as much to run the benchmark ($596 vs $175; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 10.8, and Mercury 2 when 10.8 is enough.
| Metric | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 10.8 | 22.9 | +112.0% Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B… is 2.1× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $174.51 | $596.33 | +241.7% Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B… is 3.4× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.54s | 15.27s | +133.5% Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B… is 133.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $0.60 / $2.70 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) vs Mercury 2: 112.0% more intelligence, 241.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 133.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mercury 2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) scores 41.20 for $158.
- Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
Mercury 2Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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