Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) by NVIDIA or Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) scores 20.9 points higher (33.7 vs 12.8) but costs 1.1× as much to run the benchmark ($1459 vs $1319; both premium class). Pick Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning).
| Metric | Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) | Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.8 | 33.7 | +163.3% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 2.6× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,318.62 | $1,458.94 | +10.6% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 10.6% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 17.13s | 64.02s | +273.7% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 273.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $0.90 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) vs Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning): 163.3% more intelligence, 10.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 273.7% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning)Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh)Today'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-super-120b-a12b/qwen3-8-27b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/nvidia-nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b/qwen3-8-27b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill