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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B vs Qwen3.5 397B-A17B vs Qwen3.6 27B

Too close to call on our weighted score (Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 65, Qwen3.6 27B 65, Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B 62). The right pick depends on what you value most.

  1. NVIDIA

    Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B

    Released Jun 4, 2026

    62/100
    • ECI146.2
    • Price$0.50 / $2.50
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B

  2. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

    Released Feb 15, 2026

    65/100
    • ECI146.7
    • Price$0.60 / $3.60
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

  3. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.6 27B

    Released Apr 22, 2026

    65/100
    • ECI146.5
    • Price$0.60 / $3.60
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.6 27B
01 — Verdict

Too close to call

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 65/100, Qwen3.6 27B 65/100, Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B 62/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.5 397B-A17B for raw capability, Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B on price and Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B for long inputs. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.5 397B-A17BCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 146.7 · Qwen3.6 27B 146.5 · Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B 146.2
  • Lowest priceNemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55BNemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B $1.00 · Qwen3.5 397B-A17B $1.35 · Qwen3.6 27B $1.35 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextNemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55BNemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B 1,000,000 · Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 262,144 · Qwen3.6 27B 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 397B-A17B and Qwen3.6 27BNemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B: Text · Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: Text, Images, Audio, Video · Qwen3.6 27B: Text, Images, Audio, Video
  • Self-hostingAll open weightsEvery model here can be downloaded and run on your own hardware
How the score is built
MeasureWeightNemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55BQwen3.5 397B-A17BQwen3.6 27B
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%737474
Price25%504444
Inputs & features15%459090
Context window10%603737
Overall100%62/10065/10065/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B vs Qwen3.5 397B-A17B vs Qwen3.6 27B specifications side by side
SpecificationNemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55BNVIDIAQwen3.5 397B-A17BAlibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.6 27BAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)146.2146.7 (best)146.5
ECI rank#70 of 148#67 of 148 (best)#68 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions85.4%86.4% (best)85.9%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics—31.2%35.1% (best)
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics86.7%88.9%91.1% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input$0.50 (best)$0.60$0.60
Output$2.50 (best)$3.60$3.60
Cached input$0.15——
Blended (3:1)$1.00 (best)$1.35$1.35
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Nvidia APIOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window1,000,000 tokens (best)262,144 tokens262,144 tokens
Max output128,000 tokens (best)65,536 tokens65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoYesYes
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoYesYes
VideoNoYesYes
ReasoningYesYesYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesYesYes
Availability
WeightsOpenOpenOpen
API model IDnvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55bqwen3.5-397b-a17bqwen3.6-27b
API providers212327 (best)
ReleasedJun 4, 2026Feb 15, 2026Apr 22, 2026
Knowledge cutoff———
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.

  • Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B$10.00
  • Qwen3.5 397B-A17B$13.20
  • Qwen3.6 27B$13.20
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B or Qwen3.6 27B?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 65/100, Qwen3.6 27B 65/100, Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B 62/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.5 397B-A17B for raw capability, Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B on price and Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B for long inputs. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B or Qwen3.6 27B?

Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B is cheaper at $0.50 input / $2.50 output per million tokens (official Nvidia API price). Qwen3.5 397B-A17B costs $0.60 input / $3.60 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price); Qwen3.6 27B costs $0.60 input / $3.60 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $1.00 per million tokens for Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B versus $1.35 for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B (1.4× as much) and $1.35 for Qwen3.6 27B (1.4× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 146.7 (#67 of 148), Qwen3.6 27B 146.5 (#68 of 148) and Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B 146.2 (#70 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (144.8–148.2 vs 144.2–147.9), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 86.4%, Qwen3.6 27B 85.9%, Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B 85.4%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.6 27B 91.1%, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 88.9%, Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B 86.7%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B and Qwen3.6 27B yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B and 262,144 for Qwen3.6 27B. Maximum output per response: Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B up to 128,000, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B up to 65,536, Qwen3.6 27B up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B accepts text; Qwen3.5 397B-A17B accepts text, images, audio and video; Qwen3.6 27B accepts text, images, audio and video. Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 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?

Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B is the newest, released Jun 4, 2026. Qwen3.6 27B came out Apr 22, 2026; Qwen3.5 397B-A17B came out Feb 15, 2026.

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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