DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B vs Nemotron Nano 9B v2
Nemotron Nano 9B v2 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
DeepSeek · NVIDIA · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Nemotron Nano 9B v2 is better at 3 benchmarks (GPQA, LiveCodeBench, MATH-500). Nemotron Nano 9B v2 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Based on current benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B
- you want predictable pricing at $0.12/M input and $0.18/M output
Choose Nemotron Nano 9B v2
- you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 3 of 3 shared benchmarks
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Aug 2025
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Nemotron Nano 9B v2 is better at 3 benchmarks (GPQA, LiveCodeBench, MATH-500).
Nemotron Nano 9B v2 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Arena Performance
Playground indexes and blind preference scores
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B has 23.9B more parameters than Nemotron Nano 9B v2, making it 268.5% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B specifies input context (128,000 tokens). Only DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B specifies output context (128,000 tokens).
License
Usage and distribution terms
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B is licensed under MIT, while Nemotron Nano 9B v2 uses NVIDIA Open Model License Agreement .
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
MIT
Open weights
NVIDIA Open Model License Agreement
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B was released on 2025-01-20, while Nemotron Nano 9B v2 was released on 2025-08-18.
Nemotron Nano 9B v2 is 7 months newer than DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B.
Jan 20, 2025
1.6 years ago
Aug 18, 2025
1.0 years ago
7mo newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Nemotron Nano 9B v2 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2024-09-01, while DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm Nemotron Nano 9B v2's training data extends to 2024-09-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B's cutoff date.
—
Sep 2024
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B and Nemotron Nano 9B v2 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B vs Nemotron Nano 9B v2.