# MiniMax M3 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for MiniMax M3 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/minimax-m3-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4
- Last updated: September 24, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 4
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.7

## Quick Verdict

Pick MiniMax M3 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- MiniMax M3 leads overall 54.86 to 19.1.
- The clearest category separation is in agentic, where the averages are 39.9 for MiniMax M3 and 7.3 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is BrowseComp in Agentic, with scores of 83.5% and 36.8%.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | MiniMax M3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | MiniMax | NVIDIA |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Non-Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 1M | 1M |
| Overall Score | 54.86 | 19.1 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 27 | 13 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.30 / $1.20 | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Directional only
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 39.9 (Supported · #45/105)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 7.3 (Estimated · #104/105)

| Benchmark | MiniMax M3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 66.0% | 23.5% | MiniMax M3 |
| BrowseComp | 83.5% | 36.8% | MiniMax M3 |
| OSWorld-Verified | 70.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | 74.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Claw-Eval | 74.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BankerToolBench | 76.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ResearchClawBench | 19.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 4.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 53.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| PinchBench | Coming soon | 83.4% | Coming soon |
| τ³-bench results | Coming soon | 9.5% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Directional only
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 39.2 (Supported · #59/135)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 11.4 (Estimated · #135/135)

| Benchmark | MiniMax M3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 80.5% | 52.8% | MiniMax M3 |
| SWE-bench Pro | 59% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 66.0% | 23.5% | MiniMax M3 |
| NL2Repo | 42.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| VIBE V2 | 50.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SVG-Bench | 63.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| KernelBench Hard | 28.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OpenHarmony Bench | 48.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 82.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 75.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE Multilingual | Coming soon | 36.5% | Coming soon |
| SciCode | Coming soon | 31.4% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 79.1 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 55.9 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 52 (#36/50)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | MiniMax M3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| OfficeQA Pro | 45.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OmniDocBench 1.5 | 91.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMMU-Pro | 78.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| VideoMMMU | 84.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Video-MME (with subtitle) | 85.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Directional only
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 49.3 (Supported · #59/158)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 20.7 (Estimated · #154/158)

| Benchmark | MiniMax M3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 92.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 84.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA | Coming soon | 75.6% | Coming soon |
| GPQA-D | Coming soon | 75.6% | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | Coming soon | 10.5% | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro | Coming soon | 81.6% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Directional only
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 92.4 (#5/124)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 68.5 (#67/124)

| Benchmark | MiniMax M3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | Coming soon | 72.9% | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | MiniMax M3 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| USAMO 2026 | 85.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, MiniMax M3 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4?

MiniMax M3 is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between MiniMax M3 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4?

The widest category gap is in agentic, where the averages are 39.9 for MiniMax M3 and 7.3 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4.

### How many benchmarks does MiniMax M3 cover on BenchLM?

MiniMax M3 currently has 27 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 cover on BenchLM?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 currently has 13 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

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- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/gpt-6-astra-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)
- [MiniMax M3 vs Claude Opus 5.5](/compare/claude-opus-5-5-vs-minimax-m3)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 vs Claude Opus 5.5](/compare/claude-opus-5-5-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)

## Explore More

- [MiniMax M3 profile](/models/minimax-m3)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 profile](/models/nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)