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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct vs Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B

Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B comes out ahead, 59 to 45 and 28 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. NVIDIA

    Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct

    Released Apr 15, 2025

    45/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.478 / $0.504
    • Context128K
    Full specs Remove Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct

  2. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct

    Released Apr 2025

    28/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$1.50 / $7.50
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
  3. Our pick

    Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B

    Released Apr 2025

    59/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.20 / $0.80
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B
01 — Verdict

Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B is our pick

Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B is the better all-round choice, scoring 59/100 against Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct (45) and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct (28). It leads on price and inputs & features. Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct wins on context window. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.

  • CapabilityNot enough dataNo independent benchmark covers every model here yet
  • Lowest priceQwen3-VL 30B-A3BQwen3-VL 30B-A3B $0.35 · Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct $0.485 · Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct $3.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B InstructQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct 262,144 · Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B 131,072 · Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct 128,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3-VL 30B-A3BLlama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct: Text · Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: Text · Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B: Text, Images
  • Self-hostingAll open weightsEvery model here can be downloaded and run on your own hardware
How the score is built
MeasureWeightLlama 3.1 Nemotron 70B InstructQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B InstructQwen3-VL 30B-A3B
Price50%652772
Inputs & features30%252560
Context window20%243724
Overall100%45/10028/10059/100

Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability. The remaining weights were rescaled.

02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct vs Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B specifications side by side
SpecificationLlama 3.1 Nemotron 70B InstructNVIDIAQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B InstructAlibaba (Qwen)Qwen3-VL 30B-A3BAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)———
ECI rank———
Price per million tokens
Input$0.478$1.50$0.20 (best)
Output$0.504 (best)$7.50$0.80
Cached input———
Blended (3:1)$0.485$3.00$0.35 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateOver 32K: $2.70 / $13.50Same rate
Price sourceMedian of 2 providersOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window128,000 tokens262,144 tokens (best)131,072 tokens
Max output8,192 tokens65,536 tokens (best)32,768 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoNoYes
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoNo
ReasoningNoNoYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoNoNo
Availability
WeightsOpenOpenOpen
API model IDnvidia/llama-3.1-nemotron-70b-instructqwen3-coder-480b-a35b-instructqwen3-vl-30b-a3b
API providers37 (best)1
ReleasedApr 15, 2025Apr 2025Apr 2025
Knowledge cutoff—Apr 2025Apr 2025
03 — Cost

What would a month cost?

Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.

  • Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct$5.79
  • Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct$30.00
  • Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B$3.60
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct or Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B?

Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B is the better all-round choice, scoring 59/100 against Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct (45) and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct (28). It leads on price and inputs & features. Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct wins on context window. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.

Which is cheaper, Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct or Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B?

Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B is cheaper at $0.20 input / $0.80 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct costs $0.478 input / $0.504 output per million tokens (median across 2 API providers; free on Nvidia); Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct costs $1.50 input / $7.50 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.35 per million tokens for Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B versus $0.485 for Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct (1.4× as much) and $3.00 for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct (8.6× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

There is no independent benchmark that covers all three models yet. Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct has not been scored yet, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has not been scored yet and Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B has not been scored yet.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct and Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has the largest context window at 262,144 tokens, against 131,072 for Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B and 128,000 for Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct. Maximum output per response: Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct up to 8,192, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct up to 65,536, Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B up to 32,768 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct accepts text; Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct accepts text; Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B accepts text and images. Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Yes, all three publish their weights, so you can self-host them.

Which is newer?

Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct is the newest, released Apr 15, 2025. Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct came out Apr 2025; Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B came out Apr 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct Apr 2025, Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B Apr 2025.

How do you decide the winner?

Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.

05 — Keep comparing

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