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Mercury 3 vs Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B)

Mercury 3 and Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B) are closely matched at 36.1 and 34.8 on the LLM Stats Score. Mercury 3 is 2.5x cheaper per token.

Inception · NVIDIA · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Mercury 3 and Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B) are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 36.1 and 34.8.

In the 6 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Mercury 3 wins 5; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.

On price, Mercury 3 is roughly 2.5x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.

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

  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 5 of 6 exact shared results
  • cost matters — it's about 2.5x cheaper per token
  • 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 3.5 Super VL (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 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B)
NVIDIA
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
36.1
#98
34.8
#110
Reasoning
34.8
#103
36.0
#94
Coding
21.5
#105
20.9
#110
Agents
19.4
#84
16.4
#101
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
5 of 6
1 of 6
Input price
$0.10 / M
$0.20 / M
Output price
$0.35 / M
$1.00 / 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 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B)
Long context
23.0#18
22.2#21
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

12 reported for Mercury 3 · 19 for Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B)

6 shared

Mercury 3 outperforms in 5 benchmarks (AA-LCR, GDPval-AA, IFBench, OmniScience, Tau3 Banking), while Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B) is better at 1 benchmark (GPQA).

Mercury 3 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Thu Oct 22 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 2.0x cheaper than Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B) ($0.20/1M tokens).

For output processing, Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens) is 2.9x cheaper than Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B) ($1.00/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B) is more expensive than Mercury 3.*

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

Lowest available price from all providers
Thu Oct 22 2026 • llm-stats.com
Inception
Mercury 3
Input tokens$0.10
Output tokens$0.35
Best providerInception
NVIDIA
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B)
Input tokens$0.20
Output tokens$1.00
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 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B)'s 262,144 tokens. Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (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 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B)
Input262,144 tokens
Output262,144 tokens
Thu Oct 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B) supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mercury 3 does not.

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B) can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Mercury 3

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B)

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Mercury 3 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B) uses OpenMDW License v1.1.

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

Mercury 3

Proprietary

Closed source

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B)

OpenMDW License v1.1

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19, while Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B) was released on 2026-10-15.

Mercury 3 is 0 month newer than Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B).

Mercury 3

Oct 19, 2026

1 days ago

4d newer
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B)

Oct 15, 2026

5 days ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.

Unable to compare the recency of their training data.

No cutoff dates available

Provider Availability

Mercury 3 is available from Inception. Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B) is available from DeepInfra.

Mercury 3

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

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B)

deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.20/1MOutput Price:Output: $1.00/1M
* 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 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B) side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Mercury 3
✓ Preferred
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B)
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Mercury 3 vs Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B).

Which is better, Mercury 3 or Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B)?

Mercury 3 and Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B) are closely matched on the LLM Stats Score at 36.1 and 34.8. Mercury 3 is made by Inception and Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (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 3.5 Super VL (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 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B) scores GPQA: 89.5%, LiveCodeBench v6: 88.2%, CharXiv-R: 80.8%, MathVision: 78.2%, BrowseComp: 78.0%.

Is Mercury 3 cheaper than Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B)?

Mercury 3 is 2.0x cheaper for input tokens. Mercury 3 costs $0.10/M input and $0.35/M output via inception. Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B) costs $0.20/M input and $1.00/M output via deepinfra.

What are the context window sizes for Mercury 3 and Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B)?

Mercury 3 supports 1.0M tokens and Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (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 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B)?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (36.1 vs 34.8), context window (1.0M vs 262K), input pricing ($0.10 vs $0.20/M), multimodal support (no vs yes), licensing (Proprietary vs OpenMDW License v1.1). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Mercury 3 and Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B)?

Mercury 3 is developed by Inception and Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B A12B) is developed by NVIDIA.

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