# Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Qwen3 Max

> Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 40.0 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 27× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/nemotron-3-5-lightning-vs-qwen3-max
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 17

## Summary

- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3 Max in 7 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3 Max leads 62.4 to 48.5.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.20 / $6 for Qwen3 Max.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | NVIDIA | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 40.0 | 43.7 |
| Rank | 155 | 87 |
| Context | 262K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | $1.20 |
| Output $/M | $0.20 | $6 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 40.4 (#141)
- Qwen3 Max: 43.0 (#93)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1375 | 1456 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 370.45 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: —
- Qwen3 Max: —

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 71.56 |

## Reasoning

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 26.8 (#127)
- Qwen3 Max: 22.6 (#190)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1337 | 1448 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 72.5% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 30.1% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 4% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 5% |
| DTBench | — | 82.1% |
| LMCA | — | 28.3% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 142.38 |

## Math

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#155)
- Qwen3 Max: 38.7 (#131)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1359 | 1446 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.9% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 73.3% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 97.1% |

## Knowledge

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#154)
- Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#78)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1356 | 1455 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 72.6% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 48.7% |

## Multilingual

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#180)
- Qwen3 Max: 53.7 (#62)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1295 | 1429 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1359 | 1478 |
| LMArena French | 1366 | 1449 |
| LMArena German | 1282 | 1463 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1206 | 1397 |
| LMArena Korean | 1238 | 1399 |
| LMArena Russian | 1253 | 1428 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1345 | 1462 |

## Instruction Following

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.6 (#170)
- Qwen3 Max: 74.8 (#87)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1318 | 1419 |

## Long Context

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#165)
- Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#134)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1314 | 1438 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
| CL-bench | — | 14.5% |

## Writing & Preference

- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#201)
- Qwen3 Max: 62.4 (#76)

| Benchmark | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1327 | 1439 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1254 | 1402 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1328 | 1446 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1280 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Qwen3 Max?

Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 40.0 on the Noometry Index. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 27× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3 Max?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Max lists at $1.20 and $6.

### Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Qwen3 Max better for coding?

Qwen3 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.0 versus 40.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 262K tokens.

### How many benchmarks do Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Qwen3 Max share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.