Mistral Large 4 Preview vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Which is better for the money: Mistral Large 4 Preview 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
Mistral Large 4 Preview scores 25.5 points higher (38.4 vs 12.9) but costs 17× as much to run the benchmark ($1608 vs $92.8; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Mistral Large 4 Preview when you need intelligence above 12.9, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning when 12.9 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Large 4 Preview | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.4 | 12.9 | −66.4% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 66.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,607.86 | $92.76 | −94.2% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 94.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 24.31s | 8.98s | −63.1% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 63.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.36 / $4.18 | $0.06 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Mistral Large 4 Preview: 66.4% less intelligence, 94.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 63.1% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mistral Large 4 Preview 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.
Mistral Large 4 PreviewNemotron 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-4/nemotron-3-5-lightning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-large-4/nemotron-3-5-lightning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill