Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) by NVIDIA or Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) 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
Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) scores 11.7 points higher (22.9 vs 11.2) but costs 1.8× as much to run the benchmark ($596 vs $329; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning).
| Metric | Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 22.9 | 11.2 | −51.1% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 51.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $596.33 | $328.86 | −44.9% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 44.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 14.97s | 44.91s | +200.0% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 200.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.60 / $2.70 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning): 51.1% less intelligence, 44.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 200.0% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning)Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)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-ultra-550b-a55b/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/nvidia-nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill