NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning)
Which is better for the money: NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) by NVIDIA or Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) scores 11.3 points higher (20.2 vs 8.9) but costs 32× as much to run the benchmark ($2022 vs $63.7; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) when you need intelligence above 8.9, and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoni… when 8.9 is enough.
| Metric | NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) | Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 8.9 | 20.2 | +127.0% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 2.3× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $63.74 | $2,022.49 | +3073.0% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 32× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 10.10s | 14.45s | +43.1% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 43.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.05 / $0.20 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) vs NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning): 127.0% more intelligence, 3073.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 43.1% slower end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium) scores 34.50 for $56.4.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-reasoning/qwen3-8-27b-non-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-reasoning/qwen3-8-27b-non-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill