# Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct

> Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.3 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/nemotron-3-5-lightning-vs-phi-3-small-8k-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 17

## Summary

- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher in 8 categories and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in instruction following, where Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads 69.8 to 52.2.

## Snapshot

| | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | NVIDIA | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 39.3 | 28.8 |
| Rank | 156 | 310 |
| Context | 262K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.06 | — |
| Output $/M | $0.16 | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.6 (#143)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.4 (#313)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1370 | 1102 |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 20.3% |

## Reasoning

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 25.7 (#128)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.2 (#319)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1335 | 1100 |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 15.9% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 30.3% |
| Adversarial NLI | — | 58.1% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 79.1% |
| HellaSwag | — | 77% |
| LiveBench | — | 24% |
| WinoGrande | — | 81.5% |

## Math

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 34.7 (#156)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 25.4 (#247)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1355 | 1151 |
| LiveBench Math | — | 17.6% |

## Knowledge

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 36.9 (#154)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#237)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1354 | 1067 |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 90.7% |
| MMLU | — | 75.7% |
| OpenBookQA | — | 88% |
| TriviaQA | — | 58.1% |

## Multilingual

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#175)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.6 (#267)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1292 | 1058 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1356 | 1061 |
| LMArena French | 1369 | 1134 |
| LMArena German | 1280 | 1080 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1213 | 966 |
| LMArena Korean | 1233 | 894 |
| LMArena Russian | 1257 | 1111 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1321 | 1111 |

## Instruction Following

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.8 (#166)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 52.2 (#287)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1317 | 1087 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 47.2% |

## Long Context

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#160)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#262)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1312 | 1088 |

## Writing & Preference

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#198)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.3 (#279)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1324 | 1110 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1254 | 1083 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1327 | 1068 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1280 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 12.9% |

## FAQ

### Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.3 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better for coding?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.6 versus 27.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32.