Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Step 5 Preview
Which is better for the money: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning by NVIDIA or Step 5 Preview by StepFun? 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
Step 5 Preview scores 30.8 points higher (43.7 vs 12.9) but costs 13× as much to run the benchmark ($1190 vs $92.8; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Step 5 Preview when you need intelligence above 12.9, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning when 12.9 is enough.
| Metric | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Step 5 Preview | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.9 | 43.7 | +238.8% Step 5 Preview is 3.4× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $92.76 | $1,190.26 | +1183.2% Step 5 Preview is 13× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.16s | 12.06s | +31.7% Step 5 Preview is 31.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.06 / $0.20 | $1.00 / $2.70 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Step 5 Preview vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 238.8% more intelligence, 1183.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 31.7% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) scores 34.60 for $66.8.
- Step 5 Preview is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Nemotron 3.5 LightningStep 5 PreviewToday'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/nemotron-3-5-lightning/step-5 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/nemotron-3-5-lightning/step-5?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill