Mistral Large 3 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Which is better for the money: Mistral Large 3 by Mistral or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning by NVIDIA? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores 3.6 points higher (12.9 vs 9.3) but costs 2.0× as much to run the benchmark ($92.8 vs $46.4; mid-range vs budget cost classes). Pick Nemotron 3.5 Lightning when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mistral Large 3.
| Metric | Mistral Large 3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.3 | 12.9 | +38.7% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 38.7% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $46.41 | $92.76 | +99.9% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 99.9% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 7.23s | 9.12s | +26.1% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 26.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.50 / $1.50 | $0.06 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Mistral Large 3: 38.7% more intelligence, 99.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 26.1% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mistral Large 3 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Medium) scores 29.90 for $31.2.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) scores 34.60 for $66.8.
Mistral Large 3Nemotron 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/mistral-large-3/nemotron-3-5-lightning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-large-3/nemotron-3-5-lightning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill