DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B vs Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B V1
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B and Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B V1 are closely matched at -2.9 and 4.8 on the LLM Stats Score.
DeepSeek · NVIDIA · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B and Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B V1 are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at -2.9 and 4.8.
In the 2 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B V1 wins 2; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B
- you are already invested in the DeepSeek ecosystem
Choose Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B V1
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 2 of 2 exact shared results
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Mar 2025
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
4 reported for DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B · 7 for Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B V1
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B V1 is better at 2 benchmarks (GPQA, MATH-500).
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B V1 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B V1 has 6.2B more parameters than DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B, making it 349.4% larger.
License
Usage and distribution terms
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B is licensed under MIT, while Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B V1 uses Llama 3.1 Community License.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
MIT
Open weights
Llama 3.1 Community License
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B was released on 2025-01-20, while Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B V1 was released on 2025-03-18.
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B V1 is 2 months newer than DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B.
Jan 20, 2025
1.6 years ago
Mar 18, 2025
1.5 years ago
1mo newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B V1 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-12-31, while DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B V1's training data extends to 2023-12-31, but cannot make a direct comparison without DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B's cutoff date.
—
Dec 2023
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B and Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B V1 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B vs Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B V1.