GPT-4o mini vs NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

OpenAI · US  |  NVIDIA · US · Updated June 2026

Quick verdict

Pick GPT-4o mini for very low cost per token for its capability tier or strong coding for a small model (87.2% humaneval). Pick NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super for high-throughput agentic reasoning (up to 2.2x gpt-oss-120b) or 1m-token context with strong long-context retrieval (91.6% ruler @ 1m). Choose NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super if you need self-hosting or data privacy; GPT-4o mini if you want a managed API.

GPT-4o mini (OpenAI) and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super (NVIDIA) are two of the models people most often weigh against each other in 2026. GPT-4o mini is openAI's budget small multimodal model — cheap, fast text-and-vision intelligence that outscored peer small models like Gemini 1.5 Flash and Claude 3 Haiku on MMLU and HumanEval at launch. NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super is nVIDIA's open 120B-total/12B-active hybrid Mamba-Transformer MoE built for high-throughput agentic reasoning at 1M-token context. They diverge most on price, context window and open vs. closed weights — each quantified below from the models' real specs.

Key differences at a glance

Side-by-side specs

SpecGPT-4o miniNVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super
ProviderOpenAI (US) NVIDIA (US)
ReleasedJuly 18, 2024 March 11, 2026
Context window128K (~192 pages) 1M (~1,500 pages)
Price (in/out)$0.15/$0.6 per 1M tokens Open weight (self-host / free)
Open weight?No — API only Yes — self-hostable
Modalitiestext, image text, code
SWE-Bench VerifiedNot published 60.47%
MRCR v2 @ 1MNot published Not published

Who wins what

Very low cost per token for its capability tier

GPT-4o mini

A core design strength of GPT-4o mini.

Strong coding for a small model (87.2% HumanEval)

GPT-4o mini

A core design strength of GPT-4o mini.

Leading MMLU among peer small models (82%)

GPT-4o mini

A core design strength of GPT-4o mini.

High-throughput agentic reasoning (up to 2.2x GPT-OSS-120B)

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

A core design strength of NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super.

1M-token context with strong long-context retrieval (91.6% RULER @ 1M)

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

A core design strength of NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super.

Strong math reasoning (90.21% AIME 2025)

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

A core design strength of NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super.

Lowest cost at scale

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

At Open weight (self-host / free), it is the cheaper of the two — the gap dominates the bill on high-volume workloads.

Largest single-prompt input

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

Its 1M window is about 7.8× larger, fitting roughly 1,500 pages in one prompt.

Which should you pick?

A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

At Open weight (self-host / free) it undercuts GPT-4o mini, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.

Someone analysing very long documents or codebases

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

Larger 1M window fits more in one prompt.

A team with data-privacy or self-hosting needs

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

Open weights let you run it on your own hardware; GPT-4o mini is API-only.

Anyone whose priority is very low cost per token for its capability tier

GPT-4o mini

It is specifically built for that.

Anyone whose priority is high-throughput agentic reasoning (up to 2.2x gpt-oss-120b)

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

That is its strongest area.

GPT-4o mini: where it fits

OpenAI's budget small multimodal model — cheap, fast text-and-vision intelligence that outscored peer small models like Gemini 1.5 Flash and Claude 3 Haiku on MMLU and HumanEval at launch. Released July 18, 2024 by OpenAI, it is built for very low cost per token for its capability tier, strong coding for a small model (87.2% HumanEval), leading MMLU among peer small models (82%), and text and image (vision) understanding in the API.

Its trade-offs are real: only 128K context with an October 2023 knowledge cutoff, and weaker on hard reasoning and coding than frontier models. At $0.15 in / $0.6 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super: where it fits

NVIDIA's open 120B-total/12B-active hybrid Mamba-Transformer MoE built for high-throughput agentic reasoning at 1M-token context. Released March 11, 2026 by NVIDIA, it is built for high-throughput agentic reasoning (up to 2.2x GPT-OSS-120B), 1M-token context with strong long-context retrieval (91.6% RULER @ 1M), strong math reasoning (90.21% AIME 2025), and fully open weights, datasets, and recipes for self-hosting.

Its trade-offs: text-only; no image, audio, or video input, and requires roughly 8x H100-80GB GPUs to self-host at BF16. As an open-weight model, its running cost is your own hardware rather than a per-token fee.

The bottom line for this matchup

The defining split here is open vs. closed. NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super gives you weights you control — self-host it, fine-tune it, keep data in-house, pay only for hardware. GPT-4o mini gives you a managed, always-updated API with no infrastructure to run. Teams with GPUs, privacy requirements, or huge volume often favour the open model; teams that want zero ops and the latest capabilities favour the closed one. Capability is close enough that this operational question, not the benchmark, usually decides it.

Want both GPT-4o mini and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super without two subscriptions? LumiChats gives you these plus 40+ models under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day) — draft with one, cross-check with the other.

See pricing

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-4o mini or NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super better for coding?

Public SWE-Bench figures are not available for GPT-4o mini, so the honest test is your own repository — run an identical real bug through both. By design, GPT-4o mini leans toward very low cost per token for its capability tier while NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super leans toward high-throughput agentic reasoning (up to 2.2x gpt-oss-120b), and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.

Which is cheaper, GPT-4o mini or NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super?

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super is open-weight, so self-hosting means no per-token fee (you pay for hardware instead), while GPT-4o mini is API-metered at $0.15/$0.6 per 1M tokens. For most teams without GPUs, the API model is cheaper to start; at very high volume, self-hosting can win.

Which has the bigger context window?

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super — 1M vs 128K, about 7.8× larger. Useful only if the model actually reasons over the full window, which not all do.

Can I use both GPT-4o mini and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super together?

Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you GPT-4o mini, NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super and 40+ others under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day), so you can draft with one and cross-check with the other instead of buying two subscriptions.

Which is newer, GPT-4o mini or NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super?

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super — released March 11, 2026, about 20 months after GPT-4o mini.

Related comparisons

Specifications and benchmarks reflect publicly reported figures as of June 2026 and may change as providers release updates. Always verify on your own workload.