Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) by NVIDIA or Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) 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 (Medium) scores 4.7 points higher (27.6 vs 22.9) but costs 2.1× as much to run the benchmark ($1278 vs $596; both premium class). Pick Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning).
| Metric | Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 22.9 | 27.6 | +20.5% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 20.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $596.33 | $1,277.59 | +114.2% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 2.1× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 14.75s | 55.73s | +277.8% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 277.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.60 / $2.70 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) vs Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning): 20.5% more intelligence, 114.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 277.8% 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.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning)Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)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/qwen3-8-27b-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/nvidia-nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b/qwen3-8-27b-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill