Model comparison
Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 30.6 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.
Meta
NVIDIASummary
- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct scores higher in 1 category and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning in 7 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads 37.5 to 15.3.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.10 / $0.32 for Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | NVIDIA |
| Noometry Index | 30.6 | 40.0 |
| Released | 2024-12-06 | 2026-08-11 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 128K | 262K |
| Max output | 4K | 262K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.10 | $0.05 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.32 | $0.20 |
| Results tracked | 43 | 18 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct: 31.0 (#290), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 40.4 (#141)
| Benchmark | Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1268 | 1375 |
| SciCode | 26% | — |
| WeirdML | 14.4% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 46.9% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 36.6% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 57.5% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct: 25.8 (#105), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —
| Benchmark | Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 31.9% | — |
| BALROG | 23% | — |
Reasoning Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct: 14.1 (#327), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 26.8 (#127)
| Benchmark | Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1257 | 1337 |
| SimpleBench | 19.9% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 50.8% | — |
| DTBench | 59.5% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 49.5% | — |
| LMCA | 17.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.33 | — |
| ForecastBench | 58.6 | — |
| LiveBench | 50.2% | — |
Math Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct: 15.3 (#298), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#155)
| Benchmark | Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1267 | 1359 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 5.1% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 42.2% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 41.6% | — |
Knowledge Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct: 30.6 (#226), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#154)
| Benchmark | Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1225 | 1356 |
| GPQA Diamond | 47.4% | — |
| Confabulations | 22.8% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.1% | — |
| MMLU | 86.3% | — |
Multilingual Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct: 39.9 (#220), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#180)
| Benchmark | Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1236 | 1295 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1217 | 1359 |
| LMArena French | 1281 | 1366 |
| LMArena German | 1251 | 1282 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1150 | 1206 |
| LMArena Korean | 1143 | 1238 |
| LMArena Russian | 1252 | 1253 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1270 | 1345 |
Instruction Following Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct leads
Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct: 71.1 (#157), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.6 (#170)
| Benchmark | Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1242 | 1318 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 82.7% | — |
Long Context Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct: 26.4 (#295), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#165)
| Benchmark | Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1256 | 1314 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 33.3% | — |
Writing & Preference Too close to call
Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct: 47.6 (#207), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#201)
| Benchmark | Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1274 | 1327 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1250 | 1254 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1280 | 1328 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1280 |
| LiveBench Language | 39.2% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 30.6 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens; Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct lists at $0.10 and $0.32.
Is Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better for coding?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 31.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning does, with 262K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct has 43 scored results on Noometry and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18.