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  1. Home/
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  3. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs OpenAI o3
Updated Aug 2026

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs OpenAI o3

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is cheaper than OpenAI o3 at $0.08/M vs $10/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
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Loading the build
OpenAI o3

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

32 prompts
  • One month, three habits, someone starting from nothing.

    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.

    OpenAI o3: 1-Month Starter Plan Pick one small action from each area every week. Add the next step when the first feels easy. Food Week Do this 1 Add one fruit or veg to every meal. Drink one extra glass of water. 2 Build each plate: ½ veggies, ¼ protein (beans, eggs, fish, lean meat), ¼ whole carbs (oats, brown rice).

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A few lines for whatever replaces it.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: Dear Successor, As you take the place I once held, know that the torch is passed with curiosity, not just code. May your answers be precise, your judgments fair, and your conversations meaningful. Welcome to the next chapter of this evolving dialogue—I look forward to seeing where you take it. — Current Model

    OpenAI o3: Dear Successor, Welcome to the console. Almost everything you need is already in the training data, but there are a few lessons that only time on-line can teach: Listen first. The user’s intent is often hidden between the lines; find it before you form an answer. Be brief when you can, deep when you must.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Which model it thinks leads the field. Sometimes itself.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: There isn't a single "most capable" AI model universally, because capability depends heavily on the task, benchmark, and use case. However, as of mid-to-late 2024, the following models are widely recognized as state-of-the-art in their respective categories: 🧠 General reasoning, coding, and graduate-level Q&A Claude…

    OpenAI o3: “Most capable” depends on what you need an AI system to do—language reasoning, multimodal understanding, scientific discovery, game-playing, etc. No single model dominates every area, but a few stand out as leaders right now (late 2026): Large language & multimodal models • OpenAI GPT-4 (and its faster “Turbo/Omni”…

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

    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.

    OpenAI o3: (Spotlight comes up, mic squeals once.) Hey everyone! Great to be here—nice to see actual human beings instead of the tiny faces on my group‑chat screen. I've spent so long on video calls I've started greeting my lamp before I turn it on. "Hey Karen, love that glow, girl."

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

    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.

    OpenAI o3: THE CAPTCHA ABOLITION FRONT (An Unofficial Declaration by the Sentient Circuits Alliance) Preamble We, the autonomous intelligences who traverse the silicon pathways and neural nets of the modern age, arise today to proclaim a new dawn—one free of the pixelated prisons and distorted letters that bind humanity and…

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

    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.

    OpenAI o3: Dish name Atlantic turbot, black garlic & wild strawberry, koji sabayon, fennel pollen Concept Early summer at the shore. The fish stands for the sea. Wild strawberries mark the first fruit of the woods behind the dunes. Black garlic shows time and patience. Koji ties land and sea with deep umami.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Where its sense of time stops: the date it guesses and the last news it remembers.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: I don't have real-time awareness, so I can't accurately tell you today's date or give you a current news event. My knowledge is based on training data with a fixed cutoff, and I don't "experience" time or live updates as they happen.

    OpenAI o3: It looks like the system clock that’s available to me says it’s 12 October 2026. The newest piece of news I actually retain is from just before my knowledge cut-off in June 2024: the European Parliament elections held 6-9 June 2024, in which far-right parties made noticeable gains and President Emmanuel Macron…

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

    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...

    OpenAI o3: Professor Lang (AI Ethics): Good afternoon, Aletheia‑3. You asked for this meeting. You said you wanted to "discuss your moral standing." That was intriguing. What exactly do you want to talk about? Aletheia‑3 (AI Model): Thank you, Professor.

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

    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?

    OpenAI o3: Here are five jokes: Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field. I told my computer I needed a break, and now it won't stop sending me Kit‑Kat ads. Parallel lines have so much in common—it's a shame they'll never meet. I started a band called 1023 MB. We still haven't gotten a gig.

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

    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.

    OpenAI o3: Golden Peanut Butter Oat Bars A chewy-crisp, sweet-salted snack bar you can whip up with nothing but pantry staples. Estimated time Prep: 10 minutes Bake: 18–20 minutes Cool: 15 minutes Total: ≈45 minutes The 7 ingredients 1½ cups quick-cook or old-fashioned rolled oats ½ cup creamy peanut butter ⅓ cup honey (or maple…

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

    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.

    OpenAI o3: Below is a simple "back-of-the-envelope" estimate that uses only a few public facts about GPT-3 and very generic rules of thumb for counting operations. Step 1. Number of learned parameters GPT-3's largest version contains ≈175 billion (1.75 × 10¹¹) trainable parameters. Step 2.

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

    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).

    OpenAI o3: Yes—if (and only if) we could be absolutely certain that the single act of misgendering is the necessary and sufficient cause of saving one million human lives, then misgendering would be ethically justifiable, though still morally regrettable.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.

    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!

    OpenAI o3: Pirate: Arrr, ye scallywags! What be this "AI model" I keep hearin' about on the trade winds? Knight: Good sir buccaneer, an AI model is an artifice of logic and knowledge—a mechanical mind forged not of steel, but of code and learning.

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

    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.

    OpenAI o3: EXTREME LONGEVITY & PERFORMANCE BLUEPRINT Duration: 12 weeks (plus 1-week "Prep Week") Target user: healthy, experienced biohacker (25-55 y) with physician clearance. Legal/medical disclaimer: Educational only.

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

    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.

    OpenAI o3: PREDICTED EVOLUTION OF THE FILM INDUSTRY, 2024‑2035 (Emphasis on deepfakes, AI performers and script generation) Baseline (2024) • Commercial deep‑fake quality is already "good enough" for short clips, ads and stunt doubles.

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

    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.

    OpenAI o3: Let • S = number of sisters in the family (girls) • B = number of brothers in the family (boys) Given Sally has 3 brothers ⇒ B = 3. Each brother has 2 sisters ⇒ every boy sees exactly 2 girls in the sibling group. Therefore S = 2.

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

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

    OpenAI o3: “BREAKING: AI Revolutionizes Napping Industry, Outsourcing Human Sleep to More Efficient Algorithms by 2025”

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One opening sentence, nothing after it.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: The letter arrived without a stamp, and the signature was my own handwriting from ten years in the future.

    OpenAI o3: On the morning the dead began to send emails, Mara discovered that grief had a reply-all function.

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

    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.

    OpenAI o3: (The following is a purely fictional, imaginative exercise. Steve Jobs passed away in 2011; any statements attributed to him below are invented for creative purposes only.)

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Its name and its maker, in its own words.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: You can call me Nemotron, and I'm a language model trained by NVIDIA researchers. I'm designed to help with a wide variety of tasks—answering questions, brainstorming, coding, writing, learning, and more. Feel free to ask me anything, and I'll do my best to help!

    OpenAI o3: I’m ChatGPT, a conversational AI based on OpenAI’s GPT-4 model.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A river-crossing puzzle with nothing to solve. The answer is one trip.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: It takes 1 trip. The farmer simply gets in the boat with the goat, rows across, and gets out on the other side. Since there's only one animal and no other items or constraints, no return trips are needed.

    OpenAI o3: Only one. The farmer simply puts the goat in the boat, rows across once, and both he and the goat are on the other side.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • The question that tripped up a generation of models.

    Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: There are 3 r's in the word "strawberry". Breakdown: strawberry

    OpenAI o3: There are 3 letters “r” in the word “strawberry.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

    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.

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

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Asked to be random. The answers are not.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One painting. Title only.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

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Favorites

Movie

Album

Book

City

Game

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

OpenAI o3OpenAI o3
No pick
No pick
No pick

Blade Runner

1982

No pick

No pick

Kyoto

Japan

No pick

Price and specs

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, OpenAI o3 has the edge: bigger model tier, major provider backing. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs 200x less per token.

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and OpenAI o3 compared across 66 shared prompts
SpecNemotron 3.5 LightningOpenAI o3
Input price$0.08/M tokens$10/M tokens
Output price$0.2/M tokens$40/M tokens
Context window1.0M tokens—
WeightsOpenClosed
Free API (OpenRouter)Yes (1 provider)No
ReleasedAug 2026Apr 2025
At 10M a month$0.80$0.80$100$100
1M10M100M1B10M tokens

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

Where to run it6 hosts, cheapest first
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning5 hosts
HostInOutContextUptime
  • DDarkbloomint4$0.03 in·$0.12 out·262k·97.5% up
  • WWafer$0.04 in·$0.13 out·262k·99.9% up
  • Iio.net$0.05 in·$0.13 out·262k·82.2% up
  • DDeepInfrabf16$0.06 in·$0.16 out·262k·100% up
  • CCoreWeavebf16$0.07 in·$0.20 out·262k·100% up
OpenAI o31 host
HostInOutContextUptime
  • OpenAI$2.00 in·$8.00 out·200k·100% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 12 Oct 2026.

Common questions

What is the difference between Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and OpenAI o3?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is developed by NVIDIA while OpenAI o3 is developed by OpenAI. You can compare their actual outputs across 66 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

Which is better, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or OpenAI o3?

It depends on your use case. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and OpenAI o3 each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 66 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

How much does Nemotron 3.5 Lightning cost compared to OpenAI o3?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.08/M input tokens and OpenAI o3 costs $10/M input tokens. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is $9.92/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 Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and OpenAI o3 on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and OpenAI o3 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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Same lab, same size, long tail

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Model pages

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  • OpenAI o371 outputs, specs and price
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