Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.
| Metric | Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct | Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| Input ($/M tokens) | $0.2 | $0.2 |
| Output ($/M tokens) | $0.8 | $0.8 |
Verdict. Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) takes the aggregate benchmark matchup 2–0 across 2 categories. Real workloads usually care about a handful of specific tasks — see the per-benchmark table above.
Pricing. Both models sit in the budget bracket for output-token pricing. At 1.0× the per-million-token cost, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) is meaningfully cheaper if your traffic is output-heavy (long completions, document generation, agent loops). Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) makes more sense when output volume is low and absolute reasoning quality justifies the premium.
Strengths. Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct is strongest on Intelligence Index (9.9). Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) leads on Coding Index (37.7), Intelligence Index (25.7).
Speed. On throughput, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) generates tokens at 144 tok/s versus 109 tok/s — about 25% faster. On time-to-first-token, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) responds in 1820ms vs 2140ms, which matters most for chat-style UIs.
Provider. Alibaba and NVIDIA sell to overlapping but distinct developer audiences: Alibaba tends to ship frontier reasoning models with premium positioning, while NVIDIA often prices more aggressively. Your existing vendor relationships, billing, and SLA preferences may matter as much as the raw numbers above.
Workload cost. Workload scenarios (per million requests at 30M input + 15M output tokens): Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct costs $18.00 ($216/year); Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) costs $18.00 ($216/year). At a smaller 5M-input/2M-output scale (single-developer tool or prototype): Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct ≈ $2.60/run, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) ≈ $2.60/run. At agent/realtime scale (200M input / 100M output per million requests): Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct ≈ $120/run, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) ≈ $120/run.
Recommendation. Both models have legitimate use cases — the right answer depends on whether you are optimizing for benchmark ceiling, latency, or unit cost. Start with the cheaper / faster model, evaluate against your specific task, and only switch if the upgrade shows a meaningful lift.
Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks
Both models have similar pricing. Check the detailed breakdown above for input vs output token costs.
Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) wins 2 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 0 for Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct. See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.
Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) generates tokens faster at 144 tok/s vs 109 tok/s. However, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) has lower time-to-first-token (1.82s vs 2.14s).
Choose based on your priorities: both are similarly priced, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) for stronger benchmark performance, and Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.