Mercury 2 vs Nemotron 3.5 Super VL
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL leads Mercury 2 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 26.5 to 10.8, and Nemotron 3.5 Super VL costs 1.5x less per output token ($0.50 vs $0.75 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 9 benchmarks have a result for both.
Mercury 2 or Nemotron 3.5 Super VL: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Mercury 2 for work measured by SciCode or AA Intelligence Index, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 9
- Mercury 2 only
- 33
- Nemotron 3.5 Super VL only
- 7
- Like-for-like categories
- 5 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Neither has a coding score yet.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL leads, 26.5 against 10.8.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Mercury 2 has a AA Agentic Index result, 1.6.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL leads, 1173 against 1035.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL takes 1.05M tokens against 128K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL
Mercury 2 $0.0006, Nemotron 3.5 Super VL $0.0004 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Mercury 2 not benchmarked, Nemotron 3.5 Super VL not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- General, 25.3 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- Long context reasoning (AA-LCR): Mercury 2 43.7% against Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 69.0%, 25.3 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Mercury 2 $0.75 against Nemotron 3.5 Super VL $0.50 per million output tokens, 1.5x apart.
- Context window
- Mercury 2 takes 128K tokens, Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 1.05M.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Mercury 2 | Bars | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 1 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 1 | ||
| Web design | 0 | 5 | ||
| General | 0 | 1 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 9 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index01
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | Not measured | 65.5% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Super VL measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1171 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| AA Coding Index | 31.1 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| SciCode | 37.7% | 47.8% | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 26.5% | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| WeirdML | 43.2% | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 785.6 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1390 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1385 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1160 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1199 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 32 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 10.8 | 26.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 1.6 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LiveBench research | Not measured | 70.9% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Super VL measured |
| LiveBench browser | Not measured | 4.0% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Super VL measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | Not measured | 15.8% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Super VL measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 70.8% | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 37 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench reasoning | Not measured | 78.8% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Super VL measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 77.0% | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 17.1% | 30.7% | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1362 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1358 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1374 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
MathNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 14 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index3 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text: science | 1343 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1363 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1349 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index05
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1035 | 1173 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL |
| Design Arena: UI components | 996 | 1149 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL |
| Design Arena: game dev | 983 | 1110 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1010 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 982 | 1128 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1021 | 1154 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL |
| Design Arena: SVG | 997 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 988 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LiveBench design | Not measured | 60.7% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Super VL measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench data analysis | Not measured | 64.6% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Super VL measured |
| IFBench | 69.8% | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 43.7% | 69.0% | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL |
| LMArena Text | 1354 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1328 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1286 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1378 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1330 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1414 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1304 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1357 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1329 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1300 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1314 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 34 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Inception Mercury 2 | NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Super VL |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Inception | NVIDIA |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | March 4, 2026 | October 15, 2026 |
| Context window | 128K | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.25 | $0.15 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.75 | $0.50 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 1 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Mercury 2 better than Nemotron 3.5 Super VL for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Mercury 2 for work measured by SciCode or AA Intelligence Index, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Mercury 2 or Nemotron 3.5 Super VL?
Mercury 2 costs $0.25 per million input tokens and $0.75 per million output tokens; Nemotron 3.5 Super VL costs $0.15 and $0.50. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Mercury 2 or Nemotron 3.5 Super VL?
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL, with 1.05M tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks is the Mercury 2 vs Nemotron 3.5 Super VL comparison based on?
9 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Mercury 2's coding index rests on 1 independent benchmark and Nemotron 3.5 Super VL's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.