Model comparison

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs o1

o1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.6 to 39.3 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 309× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 17 shared benchmarks.

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

NVIDIA

39.3

Rank #156 Confirmed

o1 OpenAI

40.6

Rank #140 Confirmed

Summary

They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher in 0 categories and o1 in 8 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in long context, where o1 leads 50.3 to 39.9.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.16 per million input/output tokens, against $15 / $60 for o1.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 200K.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and o1 specifications
	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	o1
Provider	NVIDIA	OpenAI
Noometry Index	39.3	40.6
Released	2026-08-11	2024-09-12
Weights	Open	Proprietary
Context window	262K	200K
Max output	262K	100K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.06	$15
Output $ / M tokens	$0.16	$60
Results tracked	18	52

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Category by category

Coding o1 leads

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.6 (#143), o1: 45.7 (#64)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	o1
LMArena Coding	1370	1367
Aider Polyglot	—	61.7%
WeirdML	—	47.6%
LiveBench Coding	—	69.7%
CadEval	—	56%
HumanEval+	—	89%
MBPP+	—	80.2%

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —, o1: 24.3 (#111)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	o1
Cybench	—	10%
METR Time Horizons	—	51.1%

Reasoning o1 leads

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 25.7 (#128), o1: 27.5 (#103)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	o1
LMArena Hard Prompts	1335	1372
SimpleBench	—	41.7%
ARC-AGI-1	—	30.7%
Chess Puzzles	—	15%
EnigmaEval	—	5.7%
LiveBench Reasoning	—	91.6%
DTBench	—	74.7%
LiveBench Data Analysis	—	65.5%
LMCA	—	22.3%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	141.92
LiveBench	—	75.7%

Math Too close to call

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 34.7 (#156), o1: 34.9 (#150)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	o1
LMArena Math	1355	1388
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	—	14.7%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	73.3%
LiveBench Math	—	80.3%
MATH Level 5	—	94.7%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)	—	9.3%

Knowledge o1 leads

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 36.9 (#154), o1: 41.5 (#101)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	o1
LMArena Expert	1354	1362
GPQA Diamond	—	76.8%
Humanity's Last Exam	—	8%
SimpleQA Verified	—	41.1%
Confabulations	—	11.7%

Multimodal Not comparable

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —, o1: 33.6 (#87)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	o1
LMArena Vision	—	1168
GeoBench	—	80%
VPCT	—	37%
SpatialViz-Bench	—	41.4%

Multilingual o1 leads

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#175), o1: 48.8 (#137)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	o1
LMArena Non-English	1292	1359
LMArena Chinese	1356	1394
LMArena French	1369	1343
LMArena German	1280	1337
LMArena Japanese	1213	1346
LMArena Korean	1233	1396
LMArena Russian	1257	1356
LMArena Spanish	1321	1345

Instruction Following o1 leads

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.8 (#166), o1: 75.0 (#82)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	o1
LMArena Instruction Following	1317	1368
LiveBench Instruction Following	—	81.5%

Long Context o1 leads

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#160), o1: 50.3 (#9)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	o1
LMArena Longer Query	1312	1378
Fiction.LiveBench	—	83.3%

Writing & Preference o1 leads

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#198), o1: 55.8 (#139)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	o1
LMArena Text	1324	1366
LMArena Creative Writing	1254	1347
LMArena Multi-Turn	1327	1368
Short-Story Creative Writing	—	70.2%
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1280	—
LiveBench Language	—	65.4%

Frequently asked questions

Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than o1?

Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or o1?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.16 per million output tokens; o1 lists at $15 and $60.

Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or o1 better for coding?

o1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 45.7 versus 39.6 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning does, with 262K tokens against 200K.

How many benchmarks do Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and o1 share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18 scored results on Noometry and o1 has 52.