Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Nemotron 3.5 Super VL?

On accuracy they are statistically tied: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scored 43.8% and Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 40.0% on the same 80 questions from open datasets. Similar accuracy; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs less per question.

Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nemotron 3.5 Super VL?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper: $0.00049 per question as billed, against $0.0013. List prices: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.07 in / $0.2 out, Nemotron 3.5 Super VL $0.15 in / $0.5 out per million tokens.

Which is faster, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nemotron 3.5 Super VL?

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL is faster at 715 output tokens per second, against 116. Time to first token: 0.5 s for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning, 0.6 s for Nemotron 3.5 Super VL.

Which has the larger context window, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nemotron 3.5 Super VL?

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL, with 1M tokens against 262k.

Head to head · tested 27 Oct 2026

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Nemotron 3.5 Super VL: accuracy, speed and price

Similar accuracy; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs less per question.

NVIDIANemotron 3.5 Lightning43.8% score · #51$0.00049 per question116 tok/s

NVIDIANemotron 3.5 Super VL40.0% score · #58$0.0013 per question715 tok/s

Verdict

Built from the measurements below

Accuracy is too close to call: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scored 43.8% and Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 40.0% on the same 80 questions, a gap within what chance alone could produce.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 2.6× cheaper per question as billed ($0.00049 vs $0.0013), reasoning tokens included.
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL generates text 6.1× faster: 715 tokens per second against 116.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning starts answering sooner: 0.5 s to the first token, against 0.6 s for Nemotron 3.5 Super VL.
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL accepts more context: 1M tokens against 262k.

Which should you choose?

Choose Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for the lower cost per correct answer ($0.0011 against $0.0032) and a quicker first token. Choose Nemotron 3.5 Super VL for faster streaming, a 1M-token context window and more hosts to choose from on OpenRouter (9 against 4). The widest subject gap is in medicine: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning answered 4 of 11 correctly, Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 2 of 11. With so few questions per subject, treat this as a lead to test on your own prompts, not a result.

Accuracy gap +3.7 points (z = 0.48). A winner is called only when z is at least 1.96, the usual 95% threshold. Speed, latency and price need a 10% margin.

Head to head

Same questions, same prompt, same API

Measure	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	Nemotron 3.5 Super VL	Edge
Verification scoreHigher is better	43.8%	40.0%	Too close to call
Cost per questionLower is better	$0.00049	$0.0013	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Output speedHigher is better	116	715	Nemotron 3.5 Super VL
Time to first tokenLower is better	0.5 s	0.6 s	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
End-to-end response timeLower is better	6.5 s	1.5 s	Nemotron 3.5 Super VL
Tokens per questionLower is better	2,846	2,771	Similar
Context windowHigher is better	262k	1M	Nemotron 3.5 Super VL

Side by side

Bars are scaled to the larger of the two values. The winner on each measure is marked in bold.

Every measure

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning first, Nemotron 3.5 Super VL second

Verification scorehigher is better

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning43.8%

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL40.0%

Cost per questionlower is better

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning$0.00049

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL$0.0013

Output speedhigher is better

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning116

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL715

Time to first tokenlower is better

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning0.5 s

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL0.6 s

End-to-end response timelower is better

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning6.5 s

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL1.5 s

Tokens per questionlower is better

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning2,846

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL2,771

Context windowhigher is better

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning262k

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL1M

Score vs. cost per question

Both models in color, every other model in grey

Results by subject and dataset

Questions answered correctly. Small samples: a gap of one or two questions is noise.

Subject	Questions	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	Nemotron 3.5 Super VL
Science	30	14/30	13/30
Engineering	15	4/15	4/15
Medicine	11	4/11	2/11
Economics	9	6/9	6/9
Law	6	1/6	0/6
Humanities & social science	9	6/9	7/9
SuperGPQA dataset	50	16/50	12/50
MMLU-Pro dataset	30	19/30	20/30

Specifications and pricing

From OpenRouter's catalogue, plus the leaderboard's test dates

Specification	Nemotron 3.5 Lightning	Nemotron 3.5 Super VL
Creator	NVIDIA	NVIDIA
Released	11 Aug 2026	15 Oct 2026
Weights	Open weights	Open weights
Reasoning	Yes	Yes
Input	text	text, image, video
Output	text	text
Context window	262k tokens	1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff	—	—
List price in / out per 1M	$0.07 / $0.2	$0.15 / $0.5
Blended price per 1M (3:1)	$0.10	$0.24
Cheapest host	Darkbloom · $0.025 / $0.12	Darkbloom · $0.06 / $0.35
Hosts on OpenRouter	4	9
Last tested	26 Oct 2026	27 Oct 2026

Compare any two models →

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Nemotron 3.5 Super VL: frequently asked questions

Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Nemotron 3.5 Super VL?: On accuracy they are statistically tied: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scored 43.8% and Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 40.0% on the same 80 questions from open datasets. Similar accuracy; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs less per question.
Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nemotron 3.5 Super VL?: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper: $0.00049 per question as billed, against $0.0013. List prices: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.07 in / $0.2 out, Nemotron 3.5 Super VL $0.15 in / $0.5 out per million tokens.
Which is faster, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nemotron 3.5 Super VL?: Nemotron 3.5 Super VL is faster at 715 output tokens per second, against 116. Time to first token: 0.5 s for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning, 0.6 s for Nemotron 3.5 Super VL.
Which has the larger context window, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nemotron 3.5 Super VL?: Nemotron 3.5 Super VL, with 1M tokens against 262k.