Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.8 Max
Which is better for the money: Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) by NVIDIA or Qwen3.8 Max 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 Max scores 17.3 points higher (40.2 vs 22.9) but costs 5.3× as much to run the benchmark ($3172 vs $596; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max when you need intelligence above 22.9, and Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) when 22.9 is enough.
| Metric | Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) | Qwen3.8 Max | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 22.9 | 40.2 | +75.5% Qwen3.8 Max is 75.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $596.33 | $3,172.37 | +432.0% Qwen3.8 Max is 5.3× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 15.29s | 62.08s | +306.0% Qwen3.8 Max is 306.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.60 / $2.70 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 Max vs Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning): 75.5% more intelligence, 432.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 306.0% 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.
- Qwen3.8 Max is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning)Qwen3.8 MaxToday'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-max-0803 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/nvidia-nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b/qwen3-8-max-0803?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill