NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) vs Solar Mini 4
Which is better for the money: NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) by NVIDIA or Solar Mini 4 by Upstage? 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
Solar Mini 4 scores 15.2 points higher (24.1 vs 8.9) but costs 7.9× as much to run the benchmark ($502 vs $63.7; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Solar Mini 4 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) | Solar Mini 4 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 8.9 | 24.1 | +170.8% Solar Mini 4 is 2.7× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $63.74 | $502.02 | +687.6% Solar Mini 4 is 7.9× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 10.73s | 22.38s | +108.6% Solar Mini 4 is 108.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.05 / $0.20 | $0.10 / $0.40 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Solar Mini 4 vs NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning): 170.8% more intelligence, 687.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 108.6% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
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.
- Solar Mini 4 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning)Solar Mini 4Today'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/nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-reasoning/solar-mini4 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/nvidia-nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b-reasoning/solar-mini4?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill