Skip to main content

Kimi K2.5 vs Nemotron 3 Ultra

Head-to-head comparison across 6benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.

Kimi K2.5

63

VS

Nemotron 3 Ultra

68

3 categoriesvs3 categories

Verified leaderboard positions: Kimi K2.5 #18 · Nemotron 3 Ultra #24

Pick Nemotron 3 Ultra if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Kimi K2.5 only becomes the better choice if instruction following is the priority or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Category Radar

Head-to-Head by Category

Category Breakdown

Agentic

Kimi K2.5
54.6vs51.7

+2.9 difference

Coding

Nemotron 3 Ultra
64.2vs74.2

+10.0 difference

Reasoning

Nemotron 3 Ultra
61vs61.9

+0.9 difference

Knowledge

Kimi K2.5
65.1vs62.6

+2.5 difference

Multilingual

Nemotron 3 Ultra
82.3vs83

+0.7 difference

Inst. Following

Kimi K2.5
93.9vs81.7

+12.2 difference

Operational Comparison

Kimi K2.5

Nemotron 3 Ultra

Price (per 1M tokens)

$0.6 / $3

$0 / $0

Speed

45 t/s

N/A

Latency (first answer)

2.38s

N/A

Context Window

256K

1M

Quick Verdict

Pick Nemotron 3 Ultra if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Kimi K2.5 only becomes the better choice if instruction following is the priority or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Nemotron 3 Ultra is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 68 to 63. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Nemotron 3 Ultra's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 74.2 against 64.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is BrowseComp, 60.6% to 44.4%. Kimi K2.5 does hit back in instruction following, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Kimi K2.5 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.60 input / $3.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Nemotron 3 Ultra. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. Nemotron 3 Ultra is the reasoning model in the pair, while Kimi K2.5 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 Ultra gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 256K for Kimi K2.5.

Benchmark Deep Dive

Frequently Asked Questions (7)

Which is better, Kimi K2.5 or Nemotron 3 Ultra?

Nemotron 3 Ultra is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 68 to 63. The biggest single separator in this matchup is BrowseComp, where the scores are 60.6% and 44.4%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Kimi K2.5 or Nemotron 3 Ultra?

Kimi K2.5 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 65.1 versus 62.6. Inside this category, AA-Omniscience Hallucination Rate is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Kimi K2.5 or Nemotron 3 Ultra?

Nemotron 3 Ultra has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 74.2 versus 64.2. Inside this category, AA-SciCode is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Kimi K2.5 or Nemotron 3 Ultra?

Nemotron 3 Ultra has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 61.9 versus 61. Inside this category, AA-LCR is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Kimi K2.5 or Nemotron 3 Ultra?

Kimi K2.5 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 54.6 versus 51.7. Inside this category, GDPval-AA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Kimi K2.5 or Nemotron 3 Ultra?

Kimi K2.5 has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 93.9 versus 81.7. Inside this category, AA-IFBench is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Kimi K2.5 or Nemotron 3 Ultra?

Nemotron 3 Ultra has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 83 versus 82.3. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Self-host vs API cost

Estimates at 50,000 req/day · 1000 tokens/req average.

Kimi K2.5
API / mo$2,700
Self-host / mo$5,221
Break-even132M/day
Nemotron 3 Ultra
API / mo$0
Self-host / moN/A
Break-even
Proprietary model — self-hosting not applicable.
Model the full break-even

Related Comparisons

Last updated: June 16, 2026

The AI models change fast. We track them for you.

For engineers, researchers, and the plain curious — a weekly brief on new models, ranking shifts, and pricing changes.

Free. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.