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Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.

NVIDIA · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 outperforms in 1 benchmarks (IFEval), while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is better at 2 benchmarks (AIME 2025, GPQA). Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.

Based on current benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1

  • you are already invested in the NVIDIA ecosystem

Choose Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 2 of 3 shared benchmarks
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2025

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1
NVIDIA
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Benchmark wins
1 of 3
2 of 3
Input price
— / M
$0.15 / M
Output price
— / M
$1.50 / M
Context window
—
65,536
Released
Apr 2025
Sep 2025
License
Llama 3.1 Community License
Apache 2.0

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

3 benchmarks

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 outperforms in 1 benchmarks (IFEval), while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is better at 2 benchmarks (AIME 2025, GPQA).

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.

Wed Aug 26 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Playground indexes and blind preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

173.0B diff

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 has 173.0B more parameters than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking, making it 216.3% larger.

NVIDIA
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1
253.0Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
80.0Bparameters
253.0B
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1
80.0B
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking specifies input context (65,536 tokens). Only Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking specifies output context (65,536 tokens).

NVIDIA
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Input65,536 tokens
Output65,536 tokens
Wed Aug 26 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 Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking uses Apache 2.0.

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

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 was released on 2025-04-07, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking was released on 2025-09-10.

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is 5 months newer than Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1.

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1

Apr 7, 2025

1.4 years ago

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

Sep 10, 2025

11 months ago

5mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-12-01, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking'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 Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking's cutoff date.

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1

Dec 2023

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

—

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 Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1
✓ Preferred
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking.

Which is better, Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 or Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking?

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks. Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 is made by NVIDIA and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their benchmark scores, pricing, and capabilities above.

How does Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 compare to Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking 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%. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking scores MMLU-Redux: 92.5%, IFEval: 88.9%, AIME 2025: 87.8%, WritingBench: 84.6%, MMLU-Pro: 82.7%.

What are the context window sizes for Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking?

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 supports an unknown number of tokens and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking supports 66K 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 Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking?

Key differences include licensing (Llama 3.1 Community License vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking?

Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 is developed by NVIDIA and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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