Model comparison
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 vs Mercury 2
Mercury 2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.1 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 9 shared benchmarks.
NVIDIASummary
- They share 9 benchmarks with published results for both. Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 scores higher in 2 categories and Mercury 2 in 4 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in coding, where Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 leads 38.4 to 33.5.
- Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 | Mercury 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | NVIDIA | Inception |
| Noometry Index | 36.7 | 39.1 |
| Released | — | 2026-02-20 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | — | 128K |
| Max output | — | 50K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.25 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $0.75 |
| Results tracked | 11 | 17 |
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Category by category
Coding Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 leads
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1: 38.4 (#177), Mercury 2: 33.5 (#255)
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1312 | 1391 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1171 |
| SciCode | — | 38.7% |
| WeirdML | — | 43.2% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 785.58 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1: 15.7 (#149), Mercury 2: —
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 10% | — |
Reasoning Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 leads
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1: 26.3 (#134), Mercury 2: 23.8 (#170)
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1316 | 1362 |
| CritPt | — | 0.8% |
Math Not comparable
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1: 37.5 (#152), Mercury 2: —
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1360 | — |
Knowledge Not comparable
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1: —, Mercury 2: 36.2 (#172)
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 12.3% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1358 |
Multilingual Mercury 2 leads
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1: 43.1 (#187), Mercury 2: 46.6 (#157)
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1282 | 1331 |
| LMArena Russian | 1284 | 1304 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1417 |
Instruction Following Mercury 2 leads
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1: 69.0 (#178), Mercury 2: 70.2 (#165)
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1308 | 1329 |
Long Context Too close to call
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1: 39.5 (#177), Mercury 2: 40.5 (#154)
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1299 | 1330 |
Writing & Preference Mercury 2 leads
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1: 52.2 (#175), Mercury 2: 53.8 (#155)
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1320 | 1355 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1314 | 1289 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1317 | 1358 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 better than Mercury 2?
Mercury 2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.1 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index.
Is Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 or Mercury 2 better for coding?
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.4 versus 33.5 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 and Mercury 2 share?
9 benchmarks have published results for both models. Llama 3.1 Nemotron Ultra 253b v1 has 11 scored results on Noometry and Mercury 2 has 17.