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Head-to-head comparison

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (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 9 September 2026

As of 9 September 2026, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning holds the stronger ModelCap Index position (#89 vs #108).

Which should you choose?

Choose Nemotron 3.5 Lightning if…

  • you want the stronger overall ModelCap Index position — #89 against #108 (44.0 vs 38.4 points).
  • you want provider choice — 2 listed API providers against 0.
  • AA Terminal-Bench 2.1 is your yardstick — 24.3% against 20.6%.
  • you want the more recently listed model — Nemotron 3.5 Lightning was listed 11 August 2026, Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B 18 March 2026.

Choose Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B if…

  • AA Humanity's Last Exam is your yardstick — 12.0% against 10.6%.

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B: specs, pricing and context

Specification comparison of Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B
FieldNemotron 3.5 LightningNVIDIANemotron Cascade 2 30B A3BNVIDIA
ModelCap Index position#89#108
Index score44.038.4
EvidenceMeasuredEstimated
Input price / 1M tokens$0.08Unlisted
Output price / 1M tokens$0.20Unlisted
Context window262K tokens— tokens
Max output tokens131K—
API providers listed20
Weight accessRestricted licenseRestricted license
Input modalitiesTextText
First listed11 August 202618 March 2026
PublisherNVIDIANVIDIA

Evidence: 1 public benchmark observation across 1 board · publisher-corpus-prior over 182 held-out anchors (57%); launch card against 3 resolved peers on 11 rows (43%); exceeds every named peer on 3 of 11 rows; optimism haircut 0 from cross-lab-probe; shrunk 4.9 up toward the measured corpus. Prices are the lowest listed API offer per million tokens observed on the OpenRouter catalogue.

Benchmark scores: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B

Public benchmark boards where Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B has a published result
BoardNemotron 3.5 LightningNemotron Cascade 2 30B A3BLeads
AA Intelligence IndexArtificial Analysis13.6intelligence-index:v4.3:reasoning-unspecified—Only one result
AA Terminal-Bench 2.1Artificial Analysis24.3%terminal-bench:2.1:terminus-2:e2b:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="Nemotron 3.5 Lightning":reasoning=true20.6%terminal-bench:2.1:terminus-2:e2b:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B":reasoning=trueNemotron 3.5 Lightning
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 Analysis10.6%hle:may-2025:text-only-2158:no-tools:pass-at-1:source-model="Nemotron 3.5 Lightning":reasoning=true12.0%hle:may-2025:text-only-2158:no-tools:pass-at-1:source-model="Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B":reasoning=trueNemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B

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.

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B: common questions

Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better than Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning ranks higher on the ModelCap Index as of 9 September 2026: #89 against #108. 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 Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 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, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B?

Both publish a 262K-token context window.

Which is better for coding, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning or Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B?

AA Terminal-Bench 2.1: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 24.3%, Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B 20.6% — Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads.

Are Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B open-weight models?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 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 Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B?

ModelCap currently lists 2 API providers for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 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 Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B comparison?

Every figure comes from the sealed ModelCap dataset published 9 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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