The AI arena is free today

Open Superagent

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) are closely matched at 19.1 and 22.1 on the LLM Stats Score.

NVIDIA · NVIDIA · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 19.1 and 22.1.

In the 1 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 wins 1; 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 Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1

  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 1 of 1 exact shared results

Choose Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Aug 2026

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1
NVIDIA
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)
NVIDIA
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
19.1
#209
22.1
#181
Reasoning
18.8
#208
19.6
#200
Coding
12.4
#149
8.4
#184
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
1 of 1
0 of 1
Input price
— / M
$0.08 / M
Output price
— / M
$0.20 / M
Context window
—
262,144

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

1 shared
Index
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)
Math
15.6#215
17.9#189
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

6 reported for Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 · 13 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

1 shared

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 outperforms in 1 benchmarks (GPQA), while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is better at 0 benchmarks.

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Tue Sep 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

223.0B diff

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 has 223.0B more parameters than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B), making it 743.3% larger.

NVIDIA
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1
253.0Bparameters
NVIDIA
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)
30.0Bparameters
253.0B
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1
30.0B
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) specifies input context (262,144 tokens). Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) specifies output context (262,144 tokens).

NVIDIA
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
NVIDIA
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)
Input262,144 tokens
Output262,144 tokens
Tue Sep 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

License

Usage and distribution terms

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 is licensed under Llama 3.1 Community License, while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) uses OpenMDW License v1.1.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1

Llama 3.1 Community License

Open weights

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

OpenMDW License v1.1

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 was released on 2025-04-07, while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) was released on 2026-08-11.

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is 16 months newer than Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1.

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1

Apr 7, 2025

1.5 years ago

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

Aug 11, 2026

1 months ago

1.3yr newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-12-01, while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)'s cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1's training data extends to 2023-12-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)'s cutoff date.

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1

Dec 2023

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

—

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1
✓ Preferred
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B).

Which is better, Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) are closely matched on the LLM Stats Score at 19.1 and 22.1. Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 is made by NVIDIA and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is made by NVIDIA. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 compare to Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) in benchmarks?

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 scores MATH-500: 97.0%, IFEval: 89.5%, GPQA: 76.0%, BFCL v2: 74.1%, AIME 2025: 72.5%. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) scores PinchBench: 85.4%, MMLU-Pro: 81.9%, GPQA: 75.4%, IFBench: 71.9%, AA-LCR: 52.0%.

What are the context window sizes for Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 supports an unknown number of tokens and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) supports 262K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (19.1 vs 22.1), licensing (Llama 3.1 Community License vs OpenMDW License v1.1). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Related comparisons