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Model comparison

DeepSeek V4 Pro vs NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra

DeepSeek against NVIDIA, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.

Catalog record checked September 3, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: High — see receipts below

DeepSeek

DeepSeek V4 Pro

Frontier · Open weights

vs

NVIDIA

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra

Frontier · Open weights

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationDeepSeek V4 ProNVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra
ProviderDeepSeekNVIDIA
TierFrontierFrontier
Context window1M1M
Max output384KNot verifiedUnverified
Input / 1M tokens$1.32Winner: $0.50
Output / 1M tokens$3.96Winner: $2.20
WeightsOpenOpen
Parameters1.6T total / 49B active (MoE)550B total / 55B active (MoE)
Reasoning levelslow, high, maxlow, high, max
Modalitiestexttext
LicenseMITNot disclosedUnverified
API model iddeepseek-v4-pronemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b
ReleasedApril 24, 2026June 4, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-08-14)53Winner: 54
SWE-bench Verified (2026-04-24)80.6Not verifiedUnverified
GPQA Diamond (2026-04-24)90.1Not verifiedUnverified
Humanity's Last Exam (2026-04-24)48.2Not verifiedUnverified
MMLU-Pro (2026-04-24)87.5Not verifiedUnverified

Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

  • 2026-08-14: Artificial AnalysisComposite index blending reasoning, knowledge, and coding evals into one 0–100 score. Comparability: directly comparable — AA occasionally rebaselines the index scale between snapshots — a score captured on one date is only comparable to same-snapshot scores (check measuredAt).
  • 2026-04-24: DeepSeek V4 Pro HF model card (vendor, Think Max, exact match)Real GitHub issue resolution: does the model's patch pass the hidden tests. Comparability: comparable with caveat — Post-audit vendor claims and pre-audit scores sit on different task trust levels; scaffolding (agent harness, compute budget) also dominates results. Never aggregate across scaffolds.

Pricing tiers: DeepSeek V4 Pro: Official peak rates $1.32/$3.96 per MTok; off-peak $0.66/$1.98 (cache-miss). Open weights (MIT). 1.6T/49B active MoE. · NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra: Open weights (weights + data + recipes); $0.50/$2.20 per MTok is the third-party hosted rate (OpenRouter). 550B/55B MoE.

FrontierOpen weightsRecord checked September 3, 2026

DeepSeek V4 Pro

DeepSeek V4 Pro is the open-weight (MIT) flagship with a 1M-token context at a fraction of frontier API cost.

Best for

  • Cost-sensitive hosted agents
  • Open-weight deployments
  • High-volume coding

Watch out

Self-hosting needs datacentre VRAM; hosted rates vary by provider. Price single-source — verify.

FrontierOpen weightsRecord checked September 2, 2026

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra

Nemotron 3 Ultra is NVIDIA's open-weight (550B/55B) frontier MoE with a 1M-token context.

Best for

  • Open-weight frontier
  • Self-hosting on NVIDIA GPUs
  • Reasoning

Watch out

Top US open-weight until Thinking Machines Inkling; verify hosted pricing.

When the cheaper one wins

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra is cheaper on output at $2.20 per million tokens against $3.96 for DeepSeek V4 Pro — about 1.8×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.

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Evidence confidence: High

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

  • Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
  • 4/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: max output.
  • 1 shared named benchmark (scores match) — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index — scores are equivalent, so the benchmark does not separate the pair.
  • Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 8 days ago.
  • Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? DeepSeek V4 Pro · NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra

Common questions

DeepSeek V4 Pro vs NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is DeepSeek V4 Pro or NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra cheaper for input?

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra is cheaper at $0.50 per million input tokens, against $1.32 for DeepSeek V4 Pro — roughly 2.6× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; DeepSeek V4 Pro has tiered pricing: Official peak rates $1.32/$3.96 per MTok; off-peak $0.66/$1.98 (cache-miss). Open weights (MIT). 1.6T/49B active MoE. NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra has tiered pricing: Open weights (weights + data + recipes); $0.50/$2.20 per MTok is the third-party hosted rate (OpenRouter). 550B/55B MoE.

Is DeepSeek V4 Pro or NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra cheaper for output?

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra is cheaper at $2.20 per million output tokens, against $3.96 for DeepSeek V4 Pro — roughly 1.8× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; DeepSeek V4 Pro has tiered pricing: Official peak rates $1.32/$3.96 per MTok; off-peak $0.66/$1.98 (cache-miss). Open weights (MIT). 1.6T/49B active MoE. NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra has tiered pricing: Open weights (weights + data + recipes); $0.50/$2.20 per MTok is the third-party hosted rate (OpenRouter). 550B/55B MoE.

Which has the larger context window, DeepSeek V4 Pro or NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra?

Both accept about 1M tokens of context, so document length will not decide between them.

Do DeepSeek V4 Pro and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra support the same reasoning levels?

Yes — both accept the same effort settings: "low", "high", "max". Higher effort costs more and takes longer, so start low and raise it only where output quality actually improves.

Should I use DeepSeek V4 Pro or NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra?

Both sit in the frontier tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. DeepSeek V4 Pro suits cost-sensitive hosted agents; NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra suits open-weight frontier.

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

  • Input price: NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra costs $0.50 per 1M tokens versus $1.32 for DeepSeek V4 Pro — a 2.6x difference at the headline tier.
  • Measured capability: NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra leads Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 54 to 53 (measured 2026-08-14).
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