NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 vs Qwen3.8 27B

Qwen3.8 27B leads llmrun Score 121.5 to 111.0; only Qwen3.8 27B fits 24 GB (Q4_K_M); NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 needs 178 GB even at its smallest quant.

Model A · NVIDIA

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

111.0llmrun Score

560.5B · 57B active · 256K context · Other · Jun 2026

ChatFunctions

Model B · Alibaba

Qwen3.8 27B

121.5llmrun Score

27.8B · 256K context · Apache 2.0 · Aug 2026

VisionFunctions

Which should you choose?

Choose NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 if you want…

Also does chat
Qwen3.8 27B doesn't list it

Choose Qwen3.8 27B if you want…

Higher llmrun Score
121.5 vs 111.0
Stronger at reasoning
124.1 vs 115.2
Stronger at coding
112.1 vs 103.3
Ahead on the benchmarks
7 of 9 shared boards
Fits a 12 GB GPU
IQ3_XXS · 12 GB; NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 needs 178 GB at its smallest quant
Fits a Mac 32 GB
Q4_K_M · 17.9 GB; NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 needs 178 GB at its smallest quant

On your hardware

Each model at its default quant (Q4_K_M), a smaller one when it must. Estimates, ±20%.

MemoryNVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16Qwen3.8 27B

8 GB

RTX 4060 · 8 GB tier

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 178 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 8.8 GB

12 GB

RTX 3060 12GB · 12 GB tier

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 178 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

IQ3_XXS · ~20 tok/s

12 GB · up to 16Kfits

16 GB

RTX 5060 Ti 16GB · 16 GB tier

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 178 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Q3_K_L · ~19 tok/s

15.4 GB · up to 16Kfits

24 GBreference

RTX 4090 · 24 GB tier

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 178 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~38 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 64Kfits

32 GB

RTX 5090 · 32 GB tier

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 178 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~67 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kfits

48 GB

RTX A6000 · 48 GB tier

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 178 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~29 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kfits

Mac 32 GB

Mac Mini M4 · Macs

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 178 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~5 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 128Kfits

Mac 64 GB

Mac Studio M4 Max · Macs

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 178 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~22 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kfits

Mac 128 GB

Mac Studio M4 Max · Macs

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

Doesn't fit

smallest quant needs 178 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

Q4_K_M · ~22 tok/s

17.9 GB · up to 256Kfits

Reference GPU: RTX 4090. Tinted cell = the better pick on that machine (fits, more headroom, or at least 10% faster).

llmrun Score

with its 90% range · bars share one scale

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 Qwen3.8 27B

Overall

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

111.0107–115

Qwen3.8 27B

121.5119–124

Coding

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

103.394–112

Qwen3.8 27B

112.1105–119

Math

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

112.0105–119

Qwen3.8 27B

117.5111–125

Science

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

111.8102–121

Qwen3.8 27B

112.093–131

Reasoning

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

115.2108–122

Qwen3.8 27B

124.1121–127

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 · #23 of 92 open models · #20 of 88 that fit ≤512 GB

Qwen3.8 27B · #10 of 92 open models · #1 of 34 that fit 24 GB

Benchmarks

9 shared boards: NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 leads 2, Qwen3.8 27B leads 7 · Benchmarks imported Oct 2026

BoardNVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16Qwen3.8 27B

LMArena Text

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

1426.1#27/186 open

ArenaLMArena · Oct 2026

Qwen3.8 27B

1438.1#22/186 open

ArenaLMArena · Oct 2026

LiveBench Coding

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

70.7#15/19 open

IndependentLiveBench · Jun 2026

Qwen3.8 27B

75.7#9/19 open

IndependentLiveBench · Jun 2026

LiveBench Reasoning

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

74.7#16/19 open

IndependentLiveBench · Jun 2026

Qwen3.8 27B

80.0#11/19 open

IndependentLiveBench · Jun 2026

LiveBench Math

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

88.7#6/19 open

IndependentLiveBench · Jun 2026

Qwen3.8 27B

86.2#11/19 open

IndependentLiveBench · Jun 2026

SciCode

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

40.3%#29/65 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Jun 2026

Qwen3.8 27B

46.6%#19/65 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Aug 2026

CritPt

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

3.1%#24/65 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Jun 2026

Qwen3.8 27B

5.4%#15/65 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Aug 2026

DTBench

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

90.1%#7/68 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Jun 2026

Qwen3.8 27B

88.0%#9/68 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Aug 2026

LMCA

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

36.9%#13/54 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Jun 2026

Qwen3.8 27B

41.4%#7/54 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Aug 2026

ProofBench

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

2.0%#23/26 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Jun 2026

Qwen3.8 27B

16.0%#16/26 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Aug 2026

11 more boards (other shared and single-model boards)

APEX-Agents

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

22.7%#14/16 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Jun 2026

Qwen3.8 27B

47.5%#5/16 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Aug 2026

Only NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 (6)

Only Qwen3.8 27B (4)

VRAM by quantization

Memory to load the model and 2K context; below it, the total at 32K and 128K context. Lighter side in bold.

QuantNVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16Qwen3.8 27B

Q2_K

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

262 GB~238.2 GB file

32K 280 GB · 128K 338 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

12.6 GB10.8 GB file

32K 13.9 GB · 128K 19.3 GB

Q3_K_S

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

not listed

Qwen3.8 27B

12.9 GB12.7 GB file

32K 14.2 GB · 128K 19.6 GB

Q3_K_M

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

301 GB274.0 GB file

32K 319 GB · 128K 376 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

14.3 GB13.4 GB file

32K 15.6 GB · 128K 21.0 GB

Q4_0

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

not listed

Qwen3.8 27B

14.6 GB~13.9 GB file

32K 16.0 GB · 128K 21.4 GB

Q4_K_M

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

370 GB359.2 GB file

32K 388 GB · 128K 446 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

17.4 GB16.5 GB file

32K 18.8 GB · 128K 24.1 GB

Q5_K_M

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

439 GB426.5 GB file

32K 457 GB · 128K 515 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

20.5 GB19.8 GB file

32K 21.9 GB · 128K 27.3 GB

Q6_K

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

509 GB460.7 GB file

32K 527 GB · 128K 585 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

23.7 GB22.0 GB file

32K 25.0 GB · 128K 30.4 GB

Q8_0

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

617 GB584.3 GB file

32K 635 GB · 128K 692 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

28.5 GB29.0 GB file

32K 29.9 GB · 128K 35.2 GB

17 more quants

IQ2_XXS

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

170 GB193.8 GB file

32K 188 GB · 128K 245 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

8.4 GB7.3 GB file

32K 9.7 GB · 128K 15.1 GB

IQ2_XS

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

185 GB169.5 GB file

32K 203 GB · 128K 261 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

9.1 GB9.1 GB file

32K 10.4 GB · 128K 15.8 GB

IQ2_S

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

not listed

Qwen3.8 27B

9.4 GB8.4 GB file

32K 10.8 GB · 128K 16.1 GB

IQ2_M

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

208 GB194.0 GB file

32K 226 GB · 128K 284 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

10.1 GB10.5 GB file

32K 11.5 GB · 128K 16.8 GB

IQ3_XXS

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

239 GB223.3 GB file

32K 257 GB · 128K 315 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

11.5 GB10.9 GB file

32K 12.9 GB · 128K 18.2 GB

IQ3_XS

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

not listed

Qwen3.8 27B

12.2 GB10.4 GB file

32K 13.6 GB · 128K 18.9 GB

IQ3_S

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

262 GB250.5 GB file

32K 280 GB · 128K 338 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

12.6 GB12.0 GB file

32K 13.9 GB · 128K 19.3 GB

IQ3_M

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

not listed

Qwen3.8 27B

13.3 GB14.9 GB file

32K 14.6 GB · 128K 20.0 GB

Q3_K_L

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

not listed

Qwen3.8 27B

15.0 GB14.1 GB file

32K 16.3 GB · 128K 21.7 GB

IQ4_XS

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

331 GB286.1 GB file

32K 349 GB · 128K 407 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

15.7 GB14.3 GB file

32K 17.0 GB · 128K 22.4 GB

IQ4_NL

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

347 GB294.2 GB file

32K 365 GB · 128K 423 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

16.4 GB17.4 GB file

32K 17.7 GB · 128K 23.1 GB

Q4_1

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

not listed

Qwen3.8 27B

16.4 GB17.5 GB file

32K 17.7 GB · 128K 23.1 GB

Q4_K_S

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

347 GB327.7 GB file

32K 365 GB · 128K 423 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

16.4 GB15.4 GB file

32K 17.7 GB · 128K 23.1 GB

Q4_K_L

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

not listed

Qwen3.8 27B

17.8 GB18.8 GB file

32K 19.1 GB · 128K 24.5 GB

Q5_K_S

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

424 GB391.7 GB file

32K 442 GB · 128K 500 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

19.9 GB18.7 GB file

32K 21.2 GB · 128K 26.6 GB

Q5_K_L

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

not listed

Qwen3.8 27B

20.9 GB21.5 GB file

32K 22.2 GB · 128K 27.6 GB

BF16

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

1233 GB1099.0 GB file

32K 1251 GB · 128K 1309 GB

Qwen3.8 27B

56.3 GB54.7 GB file

32K 57.7 GB · 128K 63.0 GB

How to run each

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16

Ollama · Q4_K_M

$ollama run hf.co/unsloth/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Ultra-550B-A55B-GGUF:Q4_K_M

All ways to run NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 →

Qwen3.8 27B

Ollama · Q4_K_M

$ollama run hf.co/unsloth/Qwen3.8-27B-GGUF:Q4_K_M

All ways to run Qwen3.8 27B →

Specifications

Specifications of NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 and Qwen3.8 27B
Spec	NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16	Qwen3.8 27B
Publisher	NVIDIA	Alibaba
Parameters	560.5B	27.8B
Active parameters	57B per token	—
Architecture	NemotronHForCausalLM	Qwen3_5ForConditionalGeneration
Context	256K tokens	256K tokens
Modalities	Chat, Function-calling	Vision, Function-calling
License	Other	Apache 2.0
Released	Jun 2026	Aug 2026

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 or Qwen3.8 27B?

Qwen3.8 27B leads llmrun Score 121.5 to 111.0; only Qwen3.8 27B fits 24 GB (Q4_K_M); NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 needs 178 GB even at its smallest quant. Choose NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 for also does chat; choose Qwen3.8 27B for higher llmrun Score and stronger at reasoning.

Which needs less VRAM, NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 or Qwen3.8 27B?

At Q4_K_M, NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 requires 370.0 GB while Qwen3.8 27B needs 17.4 GB, making Qwen3.8 27B the easier model to run on your local setup.

Can I run NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 or Qwen3.8 27B on a 16 GB GPU?

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 does not fit (smallest quant needs 178 GB); Qwen3.8 27B fits at Q3_K_L.

Which has a longer context window, NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 or Qwen3.8 27B?

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B BF16 supports 262,144 tokens and Qwen3.8 27B supports 262,144 tokens.