Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) vs Sakana Namazu: Specs & Benchmark Comparison
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is developed by NVIDIA, while Sakana Namazu comes from Sakana AI. Both were released in August 2026. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) has a published size of about 30 billion parameters; Sakana AI has not disclosed the parameter count of Sakana Namazu.
We have 4 benchmark results for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) and 3 benchmark results for Sakana Namazu, but they overlap on a single test: MMLU-Pro, where Sakana Namazu scores 90.3% against 82.0%.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is the cheaper API at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens, roughly 19 times cheaper than Sakana Namazu at $0.95 and $4. Both accept a context window of about 256K tokens. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) accepts text as input, while Sakana Namazu accepts text and images. On tooling, only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) supports function calling and only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) offers structured output.
| Characteristic | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) | Sakana Namazu |
|---|---|---|
| Company | NVIDIA | Sakana AI |
| Release Date | August 11, 2026 | August 3, 2026 |
| Parameters | 30B | — |
| Multimodal | No | Yes |
| Context (input) | 262K | 256K |
| Context (output) | 262K | 256K |
| Input Price / 1M | $0.05 | $0.95 |
| Output Price / 1M | $0.20 | $4.00 |
| Average Score | 78.5% | 92.4% |
| Benchmarks | ||
| MMLU-Pro | 82.0% | 90.3% |
Visual Benchmark Comparison
Verdict
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) leads in 2 out of 4 comparison categories.
Both models show comparable average scores: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) — 0.8, Sakana Namazu — 0.9.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is 19.8x cheaper: input $0.05/1M vs $0.95/1M tokens.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) supports a larger context: 262K vs 256K tokens.
Both models were released around the same time: 8/11/2026 and 8/3/2026.
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Frequently Asked Questions
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The Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) and Sakana Namazu comparison is updated for 2026. Data includes benchmark results, API pricing, context window size and other specifications. For more detailed information, visit the Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) or Sakana Namazu page. See also the complete list of AI model comparisons.