Model comparison
GPT-5.5 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
GPT-5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 63.4 to 39.3 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 132× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 18 shared benchmarks.
NVIDIASummary
- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5.5 scores higher in 8 categories and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where GPT-5.5 leads 72.7 to 25.7.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.16 per million input/output tokens, against $5 / $30 for GPT-5.5.
- GPT-5.5 accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 262K.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| GPT-5.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | NVIDIA |
| Noometry Index | 63.4 | 39.3 |
| Released | 2026-04-23 | 2026-08-11 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1.05M | 262K |
| Max output | 128K | 262K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $5 | $0.06 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $30 | $0.16 |
| Results tracked | 71 | 18 |
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Category by category
Coding GPT-5.5 leads
GPT-5.5: 58.3 (#13), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.6 (#143)
| Benchmark | GPT-5.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1494 | 1370 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 80.6% | — |
| DeepSWE | 67% | — |
| FrontierCode | 43% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1512 | — |
| SciCode | 56.1% | — |
| GSO | 40.2% | — |
| WeirdML | 84.9% | — |
| MirrorCode | 10% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,943 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
GPT-5.5: 50.7 (#6), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —
| Benchmark | GPT-5.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 84.7% | — |
| APEX-Agents | 55.1% | — |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 13% | — |
| Remote Labor Index | 6.3% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 44.6% | — |
| DeepResearch Bench | 54% | — |
| PostTrainBench | 27.2% | — |
| ExploitBench | 47.4% | — |
| GBAEval | 53.2% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 26% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1242 | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 7,524 | — |
Reasoning GPT-5.5 leads
GPT-5.5: 72.7 (#8), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 25.7 (#128)
| Benchmark | GPT-5.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1489 | 1335 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 85% | — |
| SimpleBench | 69% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 88.8% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 96.2% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 95% | — |
| CritPt | 27.1% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 54% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 34.3% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 56% | — |
| DTBench | 96% | — |
| LMCA | 54.3% | — |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 88.1% | — |
| Bench to the Future 3 | 0.14 | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 159.25 | — |
| ForecastBench | 60.6 | — |
Math GPT-5.5 leads
GPT-5.5: 81.5 (#9), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 34.7 (#156)
| Benchmark | GPT-5.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1486 | 1355 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 85.3% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 72.5% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 94.3% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | — |
| ProofBench | 50% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 51.7% | — |
| FrontierMath Erdős | 0% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 35.4% | — |
Knowledge GPT-5.5 leads
GPT-5.5: 64.4 (#14), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 36.9 (#154)
| Benchmark | GPT-5.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1508 | 1354 |
| GPQA Diamond | 94% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 63% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 9.3% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
GPT-5.5: 47.1 (#11), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —
| Benchmark | GPT-5.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1297 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 36.2% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 44.2% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1486 | — |
Multilingual GPT-5.5 leads
GPT-5.5: 56.5 (#19), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#175)
| Benchmark | GPT-5.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1467 | 1292 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1535 | 1356 |
| LMArena French | 1486 | 1369 |
| LMArena German | 1478 | 1280 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1498 | 1213 |
| LMArena Korean | 1461 | 1233 |
| LMArena Russian | 1473 | 1257 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1469 | 1321 |
Instruction Following GPT-5.5 leads
GPT-5.5: 77.7 (#18), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.8 (#166)
| Benchmark | GPT-5.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1479 | 1317 |
Long Context GPT-5.5 leads
GPT-5.5: 48.3 (#12), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#160)
| Benchmark | GPT-5.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1484 | 1312 |
| CL-bench Life | 22.2% | — |
Writing & Preference GPT-5.5 leads
GPT-5.5: 72.8 (#13), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#198)
| Benchmark | GPT-5.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1471 | 1324 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1455 | 1254 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1844 | 1280 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1477 | 1327 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1315 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is GPT-5.5 better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
GPT-5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 63.4 to 39.3 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 132× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, GPT-5.5 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.16 per million output tokens; GPT-5.5 lists at $5 and $30.
Is GPT-5.5 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better for coding?
GPT-5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 58.3 versus 39.6 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
GPT-5.5 does, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do GPT-5.5 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning share?
18 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5.5 has 71 scored results on Noometry and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18.