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Head-to-head comparison

Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 vs Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B

Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 (NVIDIA) and Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B (NVIDIA) compared on the ModelCap Index, API price, context window, provider availability, weight access and every public benchmark board they share. Figures are the same ones shown on the live rankings; nothing here is a hidden score.

Snapshot as of 15 September 2026

As of 15 September 2026, Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 holds the stronger ModelCap Index position (#128 vs #131).

Which should you choose?

Choose Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 if…

  • you want the stronger overall ModelCap Index position — #128 against #131 (34.0 vs 33.5 points).

Choose Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B if…

  • you want the more recently listed model — Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B was listed 18 March 2026, Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 7 April 2025.

Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 vs Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B: specs, pricing and context

Specification comparison of Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 and Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B
FieldLlama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1NVIDIANemotron Cascade 2 30B A3BNVIDIA
ModelCap Index position#128#131
Index score34.033.5
EvidenceMeasuredEstimated
Input price / 1M tokensUnlistedUnlisted
Output price / 1M tokensUnlistedUnlisted
Context window— tokens— tokens
Max output tokens——
API providers listed00
Weight accessRestricted licenseRestricted license
Input modalitiesTextText
First listed7 April 202518 March 2026
PublisherNVIDIANVIDIA

Evidence: 1 public benchmark observation across 1 board · publisher-corpus-prior over 176 held-out anchors (60%); launch card against 3 resolved peers on 11 rows (40%); exceeds every named peer on 3 of 11 rows; optimism haircut 0 from cross-lab-probe; shrunk 0.7 up toward the measured corpus. Prices are the lowest listed API offer per million tokens observed on the OpenRouter catalogue.

Benchmark scores: Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 vs Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B

Public benchmark boards where Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 or Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B has a published result
BoardLlama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3BLeads
BFCL V4UC Berkeley (Gorilla)10.0Function calling—Only one result
AA Terminal-Bench 2.1Artificial Analysis—20.6%terminal-bench:2.1:terminus-2:e2b:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B":reasoning=trueOnly one result
AA τ²-Bench TelecomArtificial Analysis—53.2%tau2:telecom:dual-control:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B":reasoning=trueOnly one result
AA Humanity's Last ExamArtificial Analysis—12.0%hle:may-2025:text-only-2158:no-tools:pass-at-1:source-model="Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B":reasoning=trueOnly one result

Scores are the sources' own published figures for each model's best evaluated configuration; ModelCap never re-runs a benchmark.

Want a different pairing? Open the interactive comparison tool to swap either model for any current ranked language model.

Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 vs Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B: common questions

Is Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 better than Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B?

Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 ranks higher on the ModelCap Index as of 15 September 2026: #128 against #131. That is a capability ranking built from public benchmark evidence with published uncertainty; whether it is "better" for you also depends on price, context and where you can run it. Their published uncertainty intervals overlap, so the rank difference alone does not establish a reliable capability advantage for your workload.

Is Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 cheaper than Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B?

At least one of the two has no listed API price on ModelCap right now, so no price comparison is made.

Which has the bigger context window, Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 or Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B?

Both publish a —-token context window.

Which is better for coding, Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 or Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B?

The two models do not share a coding benchmark board on ModelCap yet, so no head-to-head coding score is published; the ModelCap Index position is the closest overall signal.

Are Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 and Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B open-weight models?

Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1: Restricted license. Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B: Restricted license. Open weights mean the checkpoint can be downloaded and self-hosted under its licence; API-only models are available solely through hosted endpoints.

Where can I run Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 and Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B?

ModelCap currently lists 0 API providers for Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 and 0 for Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B, from the OpenRouter catalogue snapshot the site serves; each model page lists the providers and their prices.

How current is this Llama 3 1 Nemotron Ultra 253B v1 vs Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B comparison?

Every figure comes from the sealed ModelCap dataset published 15 September 2026; the page re-renders within a minute of each data refresh, and the ModelCap Index positions are the same ones shown on the live rankings.

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