# Llama 3.1-405B vs Nova 2 Lite

> Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 30.4 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/llama-3-1-405b-vs-nova-2-lite
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 17

## Summary

- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Llama 3.1-405B scores higher in 0 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Nova 2 Lite leads 34.8 to 17.3.
- Llama 3.1-405B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Llama 3.1-405B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 30.4 | 39.0 |
| Rank | 279 | 161 |
| Context | — | 1M |
| Input $/M | — | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | — | $2.50 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Llama 3.1-405B: 32.7 (#257)
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.1 (#131)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-405B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1291 | 1386 |
| WeirdML | 21.4% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Llama 3.1-405B: 20.9 (#131)
- Nova 2 Lite: 23.9 (#114)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-405B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 27.1% |
| TheAgentCompany | 7.4% | — |
| Cybench | 7.5% | — |

## Reasoning

- Llama 3.1-405B: 16.4 (#293)
- Nova 2 Lite: 26.4 (#120)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-405B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1270 | 1364 |
| SimpleBench | 23% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 45% | — |
| DTBench | 61.4% | — |
| BIG-Bench Hard | 82.9% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 128.76 | — |
| ForecastBench | 59.9 | — |
| HellaSwag | 89.2% | — |
| PIQA | 85.9% | — |
| WinoGrande | 89.2% | — |

## Math

- Llama 3.1-405B: 17.3 (#283)
- Nova 2 Lite: 34.8 (#154)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-405B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1281 | 1359 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 9.7% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 24.9% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 49.8% | — |

## Knowledge

- Llama 3.1-405B: 30.4 (#221)
- Nova 2 Lite: 42.5 (#88)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-405B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1243 | 1360 |
| GPQA Diamond | 50.9% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 72.3% | — |
| Confabulations | 17.6% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 5.1% |
| GPQA (HELM) | 52.2% | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | 95.3% | — |
| MMLU | 84.5% | — |
| TriviaQA | 82.7% | — |

## Multilingual

- Llama 3.1-405B: 40.9 (#209)
- Nova 2 Lite: 47.3 (#148)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-405B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1248 | 1337 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1242 | 1364 |
| LMArena French | 1278 | 1381 |
| LMArena German | 1252 | 1343 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1208 | 1273 |
| LMArena Korean | 1184 | 1284 |
| LMArena Russian | 1265 | 1343 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1259 | 1372 |

## Instruction Following

- Llama 3.1-405B: 66.1 (#209)
- Nova 2 Lite: 70.7 (#156)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-405B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1259 | 1335 |
| IFEval | 81.1% | — |

## Long Context

- Llama 3.1-405B: 38.4 (#192)
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#145)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-405B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1266 | 1335 |

## Writing & Preference

- Llama 3.1-405B: 39.1 (#246)
- Nova 2 Lite: 54.1 (#150)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-405B | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1284 | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1262 | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1297 | 1338 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 870 | — |
| WildBench | 78.3% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Llama 3.1-405B better than Nova 2 Lite?

Nova 2 Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 30.4 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Llama 3.1-405B or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?

Nova 2 Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.1 versus 32.7 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Llama 3.1-405B and Nova 2 Lite share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Llama 3.1-405B has 42 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.