Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B vs DeepSeek-R1

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 61 to 43. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 44.2 against 21.5. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Verified, 46 to 17.

DeepSeek-R1 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.55 input / $2.19 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. DeepSeek-R1 is the reasoning model in the pair, while Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 128K for DeepSeek-R1.

Quick Verdict

Pick Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. DeepSeek-R1 only becomes the better choice if you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.

Agentic

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

55.3

DeepSeek-R1

44.5

55
Terminal-Bench 2.0
42
59
BrowseComp
49
53
OSWorld-Verified
44

Coding

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

44.2

DeepSeek-R1

21.5

59
HumanEval
36
46
SWE-bench Verified
17
42
LiveCodeBench
19
46
SWE-bench Pro
25

Multimodal & Grounded

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

60.4

DeepSeek-R1

47.5

55
MMMU-Pro
43
67
OfficeQA Pro
53

Reasoning

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

71.8

DeepSeek-R1

50.9

64
SimpleQA
42
62
MuSR
40
88
BBH
66
77
LongBench v2
58
77
MRCRv2
57

Knowledge

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

55.8

DeepSeek-R1

37.9

68
MMLU
44
67
GPQA
43
65
SuperGPQA
41
63
OpenBookQA
39
75
MMLU-Pro
52
16
HLE
14
66
FrontierScience
44

Instruction Following

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

86

DeepSeek-R1

69

86
IFEval
69

Multilingual

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

81.5

DeepSeek-R1

60.4

86
MGSM
61
79
MMLU-ProX
60

Mathematics

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

74.6

DeepSeek-R1

52.5

67
AIME 2023
44
69
AIME 2024
46
68
AIME 2025
45
63
HMMT Feb 2023
40
65
HMMT Feb 2024
42
64
HMMT Feb 2025
41
66
BRUMO 2025
43
85
MATH-500
64

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or DeepSeek-R1?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B is ahead overall, 61 to 43. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 46 and 17.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or DeepSeek-R1?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 55.8 versus 37.9. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or DeepSeek-R1?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 44.2 versus 21.5. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or DeepSeek-R1?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 74.6 versus 52.5. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or DeepSeek-R1?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 71.8 versus 50.9. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or DeepSeek-R1?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 55.3 versus 44.5. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or DeepSeek-R1?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.4 versus 47.5. Inside this category, OfficeQA Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or DeepSeek-R1?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 86 versus 69. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B or DeepSeek-R1?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 81.5 versus 60.4. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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