# Grok 4.5 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

> Grok 4.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 55.0 to 40.0 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 34× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/grok-4-5-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 18

## Summary

- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok 4.5 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 Grok 4.5 leads 56.1 to 26.8.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.20 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Grok 4.5.
- Grok 4.5 accepts more context: 500K tokens versus 262K.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Grok 4.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | NVIDIA |
| Noometry Index | 55.0 | 40.0 |
| Rank | 25 | 155 |
| Context | 500K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $2 | $0.05 |
| Output $/M | $6 | $0.20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Grok 4.5: 52.2 (#35)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 40.4 (#141)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1474 | 1375 |
| DeepSWE | 53.8% | — |
| FrontierCode | 42.4% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1553 | — |
| SciCode | 54.1% | — |
| WeirdML | 46.4% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,309 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Grok 4.5: 44.4 (#17)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —

| Benchmark | Grok 4.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 56.2% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 47.9% | — |
| PostTrainBench | 23.4% | — |
| GBAEval | 65.4% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 14% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1213 | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 3,887 | — |

## Reasoning

- Grok 4.5: 56.1 (#25)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 26.8 (#127)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1462 | 1337 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 52.6% | — |
| SimpleBench | 70% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 83.5% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 79.9% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 87.2% | — |
| CritPt | 15.4% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 36% | — |
| DTBench | 96.5% | — |
| LMCA | 45.2% | — |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 74.4% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 153.92 | — |

## Math

- Grok 4.5: 60.9 (#35)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#155)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1459 | 1359 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 57.2% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 24.4% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 97.8% | — |
| ProofBench | 31% | — |

## Knowledge

- Grok 4.5: 62.3 (#24)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#154)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1466 | 1356 |
| GPQA Diamond | 93.4% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 48.3% | — |

## Multimodal

- Grok 4.5: 37.6 (#72)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —

| Benchmark | Grok 4.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1288 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 27.3% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 22.5% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1452 | — |

## Multilingual

- Grok 4.5: 54.4 (#42)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#180)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1440 | 1295 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1496 | 1359 |
| LMArena French | 1456 | 1366 |
| LMArena German | 1446 | 1282 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1428 | 1206 |
| LMArena Korean | 1404 | 1238 |
| LMArena Russian | 1448 | 1253 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1450 | 1345 |

## Instruction Following

- Grok 4.5: 76.0 (#48)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.6 (#170)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1446 | 1318 |

## Long Context

- Grok 4.5: 44.8 (#56)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#165)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1463 | 1314 |

## Writing & Preference

- Grok 4.5: 65.8 (#42)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#201)

| Benchmark | Grok 4.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1448 | 1327 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1442 | 1254 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1579 | 1280 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1456 | 1328 |

## FAQ

### Is Grok 4.5 better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Grok 4.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 55.0 to 40.0 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 34× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Grok 4.5 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; Grok 4.5 lists at $2 and $6.

### Is Grok 4.5 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better for coding?

Grok 4.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 52.2 versus 40.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Grok 4.5 does, with 500K tokens against 262K.

### How many benchmarks do Grok 4.5 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok 4.5 has 52 scored results on Noometry and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18.