Mistral Large 3 2512 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads Mistral Large 3 2512 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 12.9 to 9.3, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 10.2x less per output token ($0.147 vs $1.50 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 6 benchmarks have a result for both.
Mistral Large 3 2512 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: which to pick
Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a coding score, 22.6 on the Vibe Coding Index; Mistral Large 3 2512 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Mistral Large 3 2512 for work measured by CorpFin (Vals AI), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 6
- Mistral Large 3 2512 only
- 22
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning only
- 14
- Like-for-like categories
- 4 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
Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads, 12.9 against 9.3.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads, 3.5 against 1.0.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Mistral Large 3 2512 has a GPQA Diamond result, 68.4%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Mistral Large 3 2512 has a AIME result, 42.9%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Mistral Large 3 2512 has a MMLU Pro result, 79.8%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Mistral Large 3 2512 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1162.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
No call
Both take 262K tokens.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Mistral Large 3 2512 $0.0013, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.0001 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Mistral Large 3 2512 $0.77, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.06.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Mistral Large 3 2512 not benchmarked, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 22.6 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Coding, 11.6 points apart on average over 3 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- ALE-Bench: Mistral Large 3 2512 264.7 against Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 769.2, 16.8 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Mistral Large 3 2512 $1.50 against Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.147 per million output tokens, 10.2x apart.
- Context window
- Both take 262K tokens.
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 | Mistral Large 3 2512 | Bars | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 3 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 1 | ||
| Knowledge | 1 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 1 | 5 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index03
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 2512 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Coding Index | 20.1 | 26.8 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 55.3% | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 41.4% | 52.8% | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 3.0% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 10.9% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 29.5% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 32.1% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| ALE-Bench | 264.7 | 769.2 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| Neither model has a result on the other 29 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 2512 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 9.3 | 12.9 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 2512 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 1.0 | 3.5 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 18.5% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 2.6% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 2.9% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 17.0% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 36 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 2512 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 68.4% | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 66.2% | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 74.3% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 10.6% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 18 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 2512 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 42.9% | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 85.4% | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 2512 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 79.8% | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 79.1% | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 61.4% | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 61.0% | 54.2% | Mistral Large 3 2512 |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 73.1% | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 52.1% | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 82.2% | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 2512 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1162 | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1099 | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1080 | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1136 | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1099 | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1141 | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 992 | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1069 | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 2512 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 24.6% | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 4.3% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | Not measured | 60.3% | Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured |
| DTBench | 65.1% | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| LMCA | 16.7% | Not measured | Only Mistral Large 3 2512 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 41 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Large 3 2512 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | 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 Lightning costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 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 | Mistral Large 3 2512 | NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Mistral AI | NVIDIA |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | December 1, 2025 | August 11, 2026 |
| Context window | 262K | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.50 | $0.0534 |
| Output $/Mtok | $1.50 | $0.147 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 22.6 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 1 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.77 | $0.06 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Mistral Large 3 2512 better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for coding?
Only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a coding score, 22.6 on the Vibe Coding Index; Mistral Large 3 2512 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Mistral Large 3 2512 for work measured by CorpFin (Vals AI), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Large 3 2512 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Mistral Large 3 2512 costs $0.50 per million input tokens and $1.50 per million output tokens; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.0534 and $0.147. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Mistral Large 3 2512 costs $0.77 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning $0.06.
Which has the bigger context window, Mistral Large 3 2512 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Neither: both take 262K tokens.
How many benchmarks is the Mistral Large 3 2512 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning comparison based on?
6 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Mistral Large 3 2512's coding index rests on 1 independent benchmark and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.