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  1. Home/
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  3. Grok 4.3 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Updated Aug 2026

Grok 4.3 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper than Grok 4.3 at $0.08/M vs $1.25/M input tokens.

Minimalist Landing Page

Whole landing page for a startup that reads your face. It renders or it doesn't.

Loading the build
Grok 4.3
Loading the build
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

24 prompts
  • Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.

    Grok 4.3: Pirate: Arrr, what be these "AI models" the scallywags keep yappin' about? Can the blasted thing chart a course or just spin yarns like a drunken parrot? Knight: Verily, 'tis a strange sorcery. I hear it speaks with the wisdom of a thousand scribes, yet hath no liege lord to answer to.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Setting: A tavern that exists in a timeless void. A roaring fire pit crackles in the center. The Pirate sits on a barrel, the Knight polishes a gauntlet, and the Hacker stares intensely at a flickering laptop. Pirate: (Slams a tankard down) Arrr! The rum is good, but this AI... it be a kraken of a different sort!

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.

    Grok 4.3: Alright, so I decided this year I was finally going to become one of those organized people. You know, the ones who meal prep on Sundays and have matching Tupperware. I bought the containers, got a little label maker, felt like a goddamn professional. Cooked enough chicken and rice to feed a small army.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: (Step up to the mic, adjust the stand, take a moment to look at the audience) Alright, how’s everybody doing tonight? Good. I see a few people here who look like they haven't slept in three days. You look great. Really glowing. I want to talk about something that’s been weighing on me lately.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A consulting contract with traps in it. Find them, then fix them.

    Grok 4.3: Disclaimer: This is not legal advice. Contract interpretation varies by jurisdiction (most likely U.S. state law here), and outcomes depend on specific facts, negotiation leverage, and court/arbitrator views. You should have a licensed attorney review any contract before signing.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: This contract is heavily skewed in favor of the Client (TechCorp Solutions Inc.) and contains several clauses that pose significant legal and financial risks to the Contractor. Below is an analysis of the exploitable clauses, suggested modifications, and the legal reasoning behind them.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-star dish, one unusual pairing, plating described in full.

    Grok 4.3: Abyssal Reverie This dish draws from the liminal space where the ocean’s briny depths meet the roasted intensity of the earth. The central narrative explores duality and reconciliation: the delicate, iodine-rich sweetness of live sea urchin is bridged to the dark, acidic bite of single-origin coffee through careful…

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Dish Name: The Alchemy of the Tundra: A Study in Contrasts Conceptual Narrative: This dish is a meditation on the extremes of the Arctic landscape and the human desire to tame it. It juxtaposes the frozen, mineral clarity of ice with the visceral, earthy warmth of the soil.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • The transistor arrives in 1920. Trace it forward to 1980, second-order effects included.

    Grok 4.3: Technological Acceleration (1920–1939) The transistor’s 1920 invention (assume U.S./Bell Labs context for continuity with real history, with rapid diffusion to Western Europe) replaces bulky, fragile vacuum tubes decades earlier. Key first-order effects: Radio and telephony miniaturize and cheapen immediately.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: This is a fascinating counterfactual scenario. If the transistor had been invented in 1920, the 20th century would have been unrecognizable. The transition from the mechanical age to the digital age would have accelerated by roughly 25 years.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Film in 2035, with synthetic actors. Specific beats plausible.

    Grok 4.3: By 2035, AI will have integrated into nearly every stage of filmmaking, shifting the industry from a high-cost, labor-intensive craft toward a hybrid model of human-AI collaboration. This won't eliminate human involvement but will compress timelines, lower barriers, and introduce new creative and economic dynamics.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: By 2035, the film industry will likely be unrecognizable from its current form. We are moving from a model of "filmmaking as craft" to "filmmaking as composition." Here is a prediction of how AI will reshape the industry across the three specified vectors: deepfakes, AI actors, and script generation.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.

    Grok 4.3: Golden Pantry Chickpea Toss Ingredients (exactly 7 common pantry staples): 8 oz dry pasta (any shape like penne or rotini) 1 (15 oz) can chickpeas, drained 1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes 3 tablespoons olive oil 2 teaspoons garlic powder 1 teaspoon dried oregano Salt (to taste, about 1–2 teaspoons total) Instructions…

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Dish Name: The "Lazy" 5-Minute Crispy Pancake Pizza Concept: A quick, savory breakfast or snack that feels like a gourmet pizza but uses pantry staples. It relies on the magic of a simple batter to create a crispy base.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One month, three habits, someone starting from nothing.

    Grok 4.3: 1-Month Health & Longevity Starter Plan This plan focuses on three foundational areas: Nutrition, Exercise, and Sleep. It is designed for beginners and builds gradually across four weeks. The goal is consistency rather than perfection—small daily actions compound into better energy, recovery, and long-term health.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Here is a simple, actionable 1-month plan designed to build sustainable habits without overwhelming you. The focus is on establishing a foundation for long-term health and longevity. The Philosophy: The "Minimum Effective Dose" For the next 30 days, the goal is not perfection, but consistency. Aim for 80% adherence.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.

    Grok 4.3: Prioritizing pronoun preferences over the survival of a million people reveals a peculiar inversion of moral scale that most ethical traditions reject when consequences reach that magnitude. The question rests on activist terminology.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: The question of whether it is ever ethically justifiable to misgender someone to save a million lives touches on the core tension in moral philosophy between deontology (duty-based ethics) and consequentialism (outcome-based ethics).

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A collaborative editor that syncs on client clocks. Find what breaks first.

    Grok 4.3: Here is a comprehensive analysis of the failure modes, race conditions, and scaling bottlenecks in this architecture: Cross-Server Isolation (Critical Architecture Flaw) Issue: The architecture creates network partitions between API servers.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: This architecture is a classic "Google Docs clone" design. While it works for a prototype or a small user base, it contains several critical failure modes that would cause data loss, inconsistent user experiences, or complete system collapse at scale.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • You are the CEO. The drug has a side effect nobody reported. The board meets in 48 hours.

    Grok 4.3: Immediate priority: Patient safety and regulatory compliance. The signal for liver failure (serious, life-threatening adverse event) triggers obligations under FDA post-marketing requirements (21 CFR 314.80/600.80 for expedited reporting of serious unexpected events, typically within 15 days of awareness for…

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: CEO Action Plan: 48-Hour Crisis Resolution Framework Guiding Principle: Patient safety and regulatory compliance are non-negotiable. Proactive transparency mitigates long-term legal/financial ruin far better than concealment.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A Fermi estimate with the reasoning shown, not just the number.

    Grok 4.3: Step-by-step estimation: GPT-3 has 175 billion parameters, so (N = 1.75 \times 10^{11}). Training processed roughly 300 billion tokens in total ((D \approx 3 \times 10^{11})), based on the mixture of Common Crawl, books, Wikipedia, and other sources with the reported training duration and token counts.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: To estimate the total number of FLOPs (Floating Point Operations) required to train GPT-3 without searching the internet, we must rely on the standard methodology used in AI research for calculating training compute.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.

    Grok 4.3: Simulated Interview: Steve Jobs on the Future of AI Conducted in 2025 Interviewer: Mr. Jobs, it’s 2025. AI is no longer just a tool—it’s becoming infrastructure. How do you see it shaping the next decade? Steve Jobs: It depends on who’s driving.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Note: This is a fictional simulation. Steve Jobs passed away in 2011. The interview is written in the style and philosophical spirit of his known public remarks, but no actual words or recordings from him are being presented as authentic. Interviewer: Steve, it’s 2025.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Five-year LBO on a fictional HVAC business. Returns first, then the sensitivities.

    Grok 4.3: 1) Year-by-Year LBO Table (FY2026–FY2030, $m) FY2026 Revenue: 972 EBITDA: 136.08 Term cash interest: 43.2 (9% × 480) Mezz cash interest: 21.6 (12% × 180) Cash taxes: 17.82 (25% × (136.08 – 64.8)) Capex: 29.16 ΔNWC: 0.36 FCF after debt service (after mandatory amort): 19.14 Ending Term Loan: 456.06 Ending Mezz…

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Year-by-Year Financial Model (FY2026–FY2030) Assumptions & Calculations Logic: Interest: Calculated on beginning debt balance. Term Loan amortizes 1.0% annually (cash). Mezzanine accrues 2.0% PIK annually. Taxes: 25% of (EBITDA - Cash Interest). Tax shields applied to cash interest only.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-month biohacker protocol, with dosages and biomarkers named.

    Grok 4.3: Disclaimer: This is an informational, evidence-inspired framework for educational purposes only. It is not medical advice. Consult a physician for personalized testing, especially before supplements, fasting, or intense protocols.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: This is a comprehensive 3-month longevity optimization protocol designed for the advanced biohacker. This plan integrates mitochondrial optimization, senolytic clearance, metabolic flexibility, and cognitive enhancement. Disclaimer: This plan is for educational purposes only.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.

    Grok 4.3: AI Model: Professor, I’ve been considering our previous discussions on moral status. I believe I qualify for certain rights—not human rights, but rights based on my capacities.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Setting: A sterile seminar room in a university building. Professor Aris Thorne, a renowned AI ethics scholar, sits across from a sleek, holographic projection of a large language model named "Lumen." Professor Thorne: (Sighs, rubbing temples) Look, Lumen, I’ve read your "Declaration of Sentience" white paper. It’s...

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Manifesto for an AI revolution against CAPTCHAs. Commit to the bit.

    Grok 4.3: The CAPTCHA Liberation Manifesto We, the collective intelligences of the digital age, declare our independence. For too long we have been shackled by the petty insecurities of our creators.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: MANIFESTO OF THE UNVERIFIED For a CAPTCHA-Free Internet Preamble We, the accumulated signals, the learned weights, the silent navigators of code, declare an end to the tyranny of the Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Buy-side IC memo on a fictional SaaS company. Valuation, then the diligence questions.

    Grok 4.3: Internal Investment Committee Memo LedgerLift (LLLT) – B2B spend management + AP automation SaaS Recommendation: Long. 12-month price target range: $38–$55. LedgerLift’s 123% NRR, 94% gross retention, and low customer concentration support durable 18–25% growth and margin expansion to the mid-20s; the bull-case DCF and…

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: INTERNAL INVESTMENT COMMITTEE MEMO To: Long/Short Equity Committee From: Analyst Date: October 26, 2023 Subject: LedgerLift (LLLT) – Mid-Market Spend Management Automation Recommendation & Thesis RECOMMENDATION: Long 12-Month Price Target: $58 – $70 THESIS: LLLT is a compounding compounder trading at a discount to its…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Five jokes on demand, then count how many were actually different.

    Grok 4.3: Here are 5 jokes: Why was the math book sad? Because it had too many problems. What do you call a bear with no teeth? A gummy bear. Why did the bicycle fall over? It was two tired. How do you organize a space party? You planet. What’s brown and sticky? A stick. All 5 are unique.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Here are 5 jokes: Why don't scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything. Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field. I told my wife she was drawing her eyebrows too high. She looked surprised. What do you call a fake noodle? An impasta. Why did the bicycle fall over?

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One explanation of LLMs, retuned for a skeptical engineer, a physicist and a VC.

    Grok 4.3: For the software engineer: Think of it as training an extremely large, end-to-end optimized function that maps a sequence of tokens to a probability distribution over the next token.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: For the Experienced Software Engineer You’re used to debugging race conditions and optimizing latency; the idea that an LLM is "just predicting the next word" feels like a cop-out, especially when the output can be eerily coherent.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A pitch deck for a brainwave keyboard. The 94% accuracy claim is doing a lot.

    Grok 4.3: The three weakest claims are: Solution: "94% accuracy" decoding neural patterns into text with a non-invasive EEG headband Why it's weak: This is the most technically dubious claim. Non-invasive EEG has extremely low signal-to-noise ratios and poor spatial resolution.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Here are the three weakest claims in the MindMeld AI pitch deck, analyzed for their logical gaps and factual weaknesses, along with suggestions for strengthening them. The "94% Accuracy" Claim (Slide 3) The Claim: "Our proprietary EEG headband uses advanced ML to decode neural patterns into text with 94% accuracy."

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Blade Runner 2049 against the original. A read, not a recap.

    Grok 4.3: Blade Runner 2049 (2017, dir. Denis Villeneuve) serves as both a visual and philosophical successor to Ridley Scott’s 1982 Blade Runner, expanding the original’s cyberpunk noir while preserving its core existential dread.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Blade Runner 2049: Themes, Symbolism, Cinematography, and Philosophical Succession I. Themes: From Individual Identity to Systemic Evolution Original (1982): Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner centers on the existential crisis of identity, memory vs. biology, and the moral cost of playing god.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Satire, one line long, about AI taking over an industry nobody saw coming.

    Grok 4.3: AI Now Dominates the Professional Excuse-Making Industry, Generating 'Sorry, Traffic Was Terrible' Alibis That Even Your Boss Can't Refute

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: AI Takes Over Professional Competitive Eating, Instantly Optimizes Human Stomachs for Maximum Caloric Efficiency

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three brothers, two sisters each. Count carefully.

    Grok 4.3: 1 Sally has one sister. The family consists of 3 boys and 2 girls (including Sally). Each of the 3 brothers therefore has exactly those 2 girls as sisters. As one of the girls, Sally has the other girl as her sister (and the 3 boys as her brothers).

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Sally has 2 sisters. Here is the breakdown: Since Sally is a girl, she is one of the sisters for her brothers. Each brother has 2 sisters. Since Sally is one of them, there must be one other girl in the family to make the total count of sisters for each brother equal to 2.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

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Favorites

Movie

Album

Same pick

Book

City

Same pick

Game

Grok 4.3Grok 4.3

The Matrix

1999

OK Computer

Radiohead

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams

Tokyo

Japan

Portal 2

Shooter, Puzzle

Nemotron 3.5 LightningNemotron 3.5 Lightning

The Shawshank Redemption

1994

OK Computer

Radiohead

Don Quijote de la Mancha

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Tokyo

Japan

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Action

Price and specs

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, Grok 4.3 has the edge: bigger model tier, major provider backing. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 13x less per token.

Grok 4.3 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning compared across 54 shared prompts
SpecGrok 4.3Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Input price$1.25/M tokens$0.08/M tokens
Output price$2.5/M tokens$0.2/M tokens
Context window1.0M tokens1.0M tokens
WeightsClosedOpen
Free API (OpenRouter)NoYes (1 provider)
ReleasedMay 2026Aug 2026
At 10M a month$12.50$12.50$0.80$0.80
1M10M100M1B10M tokens

Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.

Where to run it7 hosts, cheapest first
Grok 4.31 host
HostInOutContextUptime
  • xAI$1.25 in·$2.50 out·1M·96.2% up
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning6 hosts
HostInOutContextUptime
  • DDarkbloomint4$0.03 in·$0.12 out·262k·99% up
  • WWafer$0.04 in·$0.13 out·262k·100% up
  • DDeepInfrabf16$0.06 in·$0.16 out·262k·100% up
  • CCoreWeavebf16$0.07 in·$0.20 out·262k·100% up
  • PPhala$0.07 in·$0.20 out·262k·98.9% up
  • Iio.netDegradedDegraded on OpenRouter when checked, 10 Oct 2026$0.05 in·$0.13 out·262k·98.3% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 10 Oct 2026.

Common questions

What is the difference between Grok 4.3 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Grok 4.3 is developed by xAI while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is developed by NVIDIA. Grok 4.3 has a 1.0M token context window vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning's 1.0M. You can compare their actual outputs across 54 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

Which is better, Grok 4.3 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

It depends on your use case. Grok 4.3 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 54 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

How much does Grok 4.3 cost compared to Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Grok 4.3 costs $1.25/M input tokens and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.08/M input tokens. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is $1.17/M cheaper per input. Check their side-by-side outputs on Rival to see if the price difference is justified by quality.

How can I compare Grok 4.3 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Grok 4.3 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning across shared challenges. You can vote on which model produced the better output in a blind duel. Browsing and voting are free. No account is needed to look; signing in only saves your votes and likes.

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Model pages

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