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Mercury 3 vs Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)

Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 26.3. Mercury 3 is 1.0x cheaper per token.

Inception · NVIDIA · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Mercury 3 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 26.3, ranking #98 overall.

In the 4 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Mercury 3 wins 4; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.

Mercury 3 also accepts a larger context window (1,000,000 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Mercury 3

  • overall performance matters — it scores 36.1 and ranks #98 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning and coding — it leads those capability indexes
  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 4 of 4 exact shared results
  • you process long inputs — it offers a 1,000,000 token context window
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Oct 2026

Choose Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)

  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Mercury 3
Inception
Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)
NVIDIA
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
36.1
#98
26.3
#175
Reasoning
34.8
#103
24.5
#178
Coding
21.5
#105
12.7
#162
Agents
19.4
#84
-0.8
#199
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
4 of 4
0 of 4
Input price
$0.10 / M
$0.09 / M
Output price
$0.35 / M
$0.40 / M
Context window
1,000,000
262,144

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

1 shared
Index
Mercury 3
Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)
Long context
23.0#18
11.6#67
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

12 reported for Mercury 3 · 23 for Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)

4 shared

Mercury 3 outperforms in 4 benchmarks (AA-LCR, GPQA, IFBench, Multi-Challenge), while Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B) is better at 0 benchmarks.

Mercury 3 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Mon Oct 26 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

Mercury 3 costs less

For input processing, Mercury 3 ($0.10/1M tokens) is 1.2x more expensive than Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B) ($0.09/1M tokens).

For output processing, Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens) is 1.1x cheaper than Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B) ($0.40/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B) is more expensive than Mercury 3.*

* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens

Lowest available price from all providers
Mon Oct 26 2026 • llm-stats.com
Inception
Mercury 3
Input tokens$0.10
Output tokens$0.35
Best providerInception
NVIDIA
Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)
Input tokens$0.09
Output tokens$0.40
Best providerDeepinfra
Notice missing or incorrect data?

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Mercury 3 accepts 1,000,000 input tokens compared to Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)'s 262,144 tokens. Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B) can generate longer responses up to 262,144 tokens, while Mercury 3 is limited to 131,072 tokens.

Inception
Mercury 3
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
NVIDIA
Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)
Input262,144 tokens
Output262,144 tokens
Mon Oct 26 2026 • llm-stats.com

License

Usage and distribution terms

Mercury 3 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B) uses NVIDIA Open Model License Agreement .

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

Mercury 3

Proprietary

Closed source

Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)

NVIDIA Open Model License Agreement

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19, while Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B) was released on 2026-03-11.

Mercury 3 is 7 months newer than Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B).

Mercury 3

Oct 19, 2026

6 days ago

7mo newer
Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)

Mar 11, 2026

7 months ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B) has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2025-06-01, while Mercury 3's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)'s training data extends to 2025-06-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Mercury 3's cutoff date.

Mercury 3

—

Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)

Jun 2025

Provider Availability

Mercury 3 is available from Inception. Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B) is available from DeepInfra.

Mercury 3

inception logo
Inception
Input Price:Input: $0.10/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.35/1M

Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)

deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.09/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.40/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Mercury 3 and Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B) side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Mercury 3
✓ Preferred
Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Mercury 3 vs Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B).

Which is better, Mercury 3 or Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)?

Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 26.3. Mercury 3 is made by Inception and Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B) is made by NVIDIA. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Mercury 3 compare to Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B) in benchmarks?

Mercury 3 scores GPQA: 89.2%, AA-LCR: 77.7%, IFBench: 76.8%, MRCR v2: 75.5%, DeepSearchQA: 71.3%. Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B) scores HMMT 2025: 94.7%, RULER: 91.8%, AIME 2025: 90.2%, WMT24++: 86.7%, MMLU-Pro: 83.7%.

Is Mercury 3 cheaper than Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)?

Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B) is 1.2x cheaper for input tokens. Mercury 3 costs $0.10/M input and $0.35/M output via inception. Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B) costs $0.09/M input and $0.40/M output via deepinfra.

What are the context window sizes for Mercury 3 and Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)?

Mercury 3 supports 1.0M tokens and Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B) 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 Mercury 3 and Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (36.1 vs 26.3), context window (1.0M vs 262K), input pricing ($0.10 vs $0.09/M), licensing (Proprietary vs NVIDIA Open Model License Agreement ). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Mercury 3 and Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B)?

Mercury 3 is developed by Inception and Nemotron 3 Super (120B A12B) is developed by NVIDIA.

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