Step 3.5 Flash vs Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

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

Step 3.5 Flash is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 66 to 61. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Step 3.5 Flash's sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 84.5 against 74.6. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MuSR, 82 to 62.

Step 3.5 Flash is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.10 input / $0.30 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.

Quick Verdict

Pick Step 3.5 Flash if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill.

Agentic

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

60.2

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

55.3

62
Terminal-Bench 2.0
55
66
BrowseComp
59
54
OSWorld-Verified
53

Coding

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

47.1

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

44.2

77
HumanEval
59
48
SWE-bench Verified
46
45
LiveCodeBench
42
49
SWE-bench Pro
46

Multimodal & Grounded

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

66.7

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

60.4

64
MMMU-Pro
55
70
OfficeQA Pro
67

Reasoning

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

78.3

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

71.8

82
SimpleQA
64
82
MuSR
62
83
BBH
88
74
LongBench v2
77
73
MRCRv2
77

Knowledge

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

60.8

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

55.8

84
MMLU
68
83
GPQA
67
81
SuperGPQA
65
79
OpenBookQA
63
76
MMLU-Pro
75
12
HLE
16
71
FrontierScience
66

Instruction Following

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

87

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

86

87
IFEval
86

Multilingual

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

82.8

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

81.5

86
MGSM
86
81
MMLU-ProX
79

Mathematics

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

84.5

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

74.6

85
AIME 2023
67
87
AIME 2024
69
86
AIME 2025
68
81
HMMT Feb 2023
63
83
HMMT Feb 2024
65
82
HMMT Feb 2025
64
84
BRUMO 2025
66
85
MATH-500
85

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Step 3.5 Flash or Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B?

Step 3.5 Flash is ahead overall, 66 to 61. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MuSR, where the scores are 82 and 62.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.8 versus 55.8. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Step 3.5 Flash or Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 47.1 versus 44.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Step 3.5 Flash or Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 84.5 versus 74.6. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Step 3.5 Flash or Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 78.3 versus 71.8. Inside this category, MuSR is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.2 versus 55.3. 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, Step 3.5 Flash or Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 66.7 versus 60.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Step 3.5 Flash or Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 87 versus 86. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.8 versus 81.5. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

Weekly LLM Benchmark Digest

Get notified when new models drop, benchmark scores change, or the leaderboard shifts. One email per week.

Free. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. We only store derived location metadata for consent routing.