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Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) leads the LLM Stats Score 29.9 to 22.1.

NVIDIA · NVIDIA · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) leads the overall LLM Stats Score 29.9 to 22.1, ranking #142 overall.

In the 9 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) wins 8; 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 Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)

  • overall performance matters — it scores 29.9 and ranks #142 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning — it leads those capability indexes
  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 8 of 9 exact shared results
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Oct 2026

Choose Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

  • you want predictable pricing at $0.08/M input and $0.20/M output

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)
NVIDIA
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)
NVIDIA
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
29.9
#142
22.1
#200
Reasoning
29.2
#143
20.0
#212
Coding
14.8
#151
7.4
#205
Agents
12.4
#124
5.9
#163
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
8 of 9
1 of 9
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

2 shared
Index
Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)
Math
23.6#135
17.2#206
Tool use
5.6#168
-0.7#202
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

10 reported for Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) · 13 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

9 shared

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) outperforms in 8 benchmarks (AA-LCR, BrowseComp, GPQA, Humanity's Last Exam, PinchBench, SciCode, Tau3 Banking, Terminal-Bench 2.1), while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is better at 1 benchmark (OmniScience).

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Tue Oct 20 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

44.0B diff

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) has 44.0B more parameters than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B), making it 146.7% larger.

NVIDIA
Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)
74.0Bparameters
NVIDIA
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)
30.0Bparameters
74.0B
Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)
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
Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
NVIDIA
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)
Input262,144 tokens
Output262,144 tokens
Tue Oct 20 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) supports multimodal inputs, whereas Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) does not.

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Both models are licensed under OpenMDW License v1.1.

Both models share the same licensing terms, providing consistent usage rights.

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)

OpenMDW License v1.1

Open weights

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

OpenMDW License v1.1

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) was released on 2026-10-15, while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) was released on 2026-08-11.

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) is 2 months newer than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B).

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)

Oct 15, 2026

4 days ago

2mo newer
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

Aug 11, 2026

2 months ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2026-05-01, while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)'s cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)'s training data extends to 2026-05-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)'s cutoff date.

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)

May 2026

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)

—

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB)
✓ Preferred
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B).

Which is better, Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) leads the LLM Stats Score 29.9 to 22.1. Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) 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 Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) compare to Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) in benchmarks?

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) scores PinchBench: 87.8%, GPQA: 86.4%, BrowseComp: 66.8%, AA-LCR: 64.1%, MCP Atlas: 52.2%. 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 Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?

Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) 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 Nemotron 3.5 Bolt (74B A9B 24GB) and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (29.9 vs 22.1), multimodal support (yes vs no). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

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