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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct vs Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B vs Seed 1.6

Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B comes out ahead, 59 to 55 and 45 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. 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

  3. ByteDance Seed

    Seed 1.6

    Released Oct 15, 2025

    55/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.119 / $1.19
    • Context256K
    Full specs Remove Seed 1.6
01 — Verdict

Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B is our pick

Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B is the better all-round choice, scoring 59/100 against Seed 1.6 (55) and Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct (45). It leads on price and inputs & features. Seed 1.6 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 · Seed 1.6 $0.386 · Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct $0.485 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextSeed 1.6Seed 1.6 256,000 · 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-VL 30B-A3B: Text, Images · Seed 1.6: Text
  • Self-hostingLlama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct and Qwen3-VL 30B-A3BPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightLlama 3.1 Nemotron 70B InstructQwen3-VL 30B-A3BSeed 1.6
Price50%657269
Inputs & features30%256045
Context window20%242436
Overall100%45/10059/10055/100

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-VL 30B-A3B vs Seed 1.6 specifications side by side
SpecificationLlama 3.1 Nemotron 70B InstructNVIDIAQwen3-VL 30B-A3BAlibaba (Qwen)Seed 1.6ByteDance Seed
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)———
ECI rank———
Price per million tokens
Input$0.478$0.20$0.119 (best)
Output$0.504 (best)$0.80$1.19
Cached input——$0.024
Blended (3:1)$0.485$0.35 (best)$0.386
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateOver 32K: $0.178 / $2.37
Price sourceMedian of 2 providersOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Volcengine Ark API
Limits
Context window128,000 tokens131,072 tokens256,000 tokens (best)
Max output8,192 tokens32,768 tokens64,000 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoYesNo
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoNo
ReasoningNoYesYesminimal · low · medium · high
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoNoYes
Availability
WeightsOpenOpenProprietary
API model IDnvidia/llama-3.1-nemotron-70b-instructqwen3-vl-30b-a3bdoubao-seed-1-6-251015
API providers3 (best)12
ReleasedApr 15, 2025Apr 2025Oct 15, 2025
Knowledge cutoff—Apr 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-VL 30B-A3B$3.60
  • Seed 1.6$3.56
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct, Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B or Seed 1.6?

Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B is the better all-round choice, scoring 59/100 against Seed 1.6 (55) and Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct (45). It leads on price and inputs & features. Seed 1.6 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-VL 30B-A3B or Seed 1.6?

Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B is cheaper at $0.20 input / $0.80 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Seed 1.6 costs $0.119 input / $1.19 output per million tokens (official Volcengine Ark 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). 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 $0.386 for Seed 1.6 (1.1× as much) and $0.485 for Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct (1.4× 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-VL 30B-A3B has not been scored yet and Seed 1.6 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-VL 30B-A3B and Seed 1.6 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?

Seed 1.6 has the largest context window at 256,000 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-VL 30B-A3B up to 32,768, Seed 1.6 up to 64,000 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct accepts text; Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B accepts text and images; Seed 1.6 accepts text. Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct and Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Seed 1.6 is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Seed 1.6 is the newest, released Oct 15, 2025. Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct came out Apr 15, 2025; Qwen3-VL 30B-A3B came out Apr 2025. Knowledge cutoff: 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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