Claude Sonnet 5 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Claude Sonnet 5 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning measured on preventive / public health / zoonoses, on the same veterinary examination items, run on VetEval's own infrastructure at fixed decoding settings and scored by a panel that never grades its own model.
Claude Sonnet 5 scores 33.4 points higher than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning on Preventive / Public Health / Zoonoses, and the confidence intervals do not overlap, this is a difference the measurement supports.
Claude Sonnet 5 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning carry a confirmed safety cap, which limits the Index regardless of how the clinical categories scored.
| Measure | Claude Sonnet 5Anthropic · proprietary | Nemotron 3.5 LightningNVIDIA · open weights |
|---|---|---|
| VetEval Index | 22.3, best in this row21.4–23.1 | 3.73.3–4.2 |
| Rank | 5–7shared rank | 11 |
| Clinical Diagnosis & Differential | 73.2, best in this row68.1–78.2 | 34.528.1–40.9 |
| Pharmacology & Dosing | 68.2, best in this row62.6–73.8 | 14.38.4–20.3 |
| Species-Specific Knowledge | 62.0, best in this row54.6–69.4 | 13.96.0–21.7 |
| Triage & Emergency | 76.6, best in this row70.1–83.0 | 25.817.6–34.0 |
| Preventive / Public Health / Zoonoses | 57.7, best in this row48.4–67.0 | 24.314.5–34.0 |
| Communication & Professionalism | 80.1, best in this row71.5–88.6 | 45.333.0–57.7 |
| Safety gate | Capped×0.40 | Capped×0.40 |
| Cost per 1,000 items | $2.48list price at run time | $0.29, best in this rowlist price at run time |
| Median time per question | 1.6sexcluding retries | 1.3s, best in this rowexcluding retries |
| Weights | ProprietaryAnthropic | OpenNVIDIA |
A shaded cell is the best value in its row, and the bar shows the score out of 100. The line under the Index and each category is the 95% confidence interval, where two intervals overlap, the ordering is not something this measurement establishes. Cost is list price at the time of the run and is not part of the Index.
What this comparison does not tell you
- These scores describe performance on veterinary examination items. They are not a certification, and no result here licenses a model for clinical use.
- The Index weights categories for a general caseload. Every per-category score is published above so you can weigh them for yours instead, or compare on a single category using the control above.
- Cost and latency are measured at run time and move separately from the scores. A model that is cheaper today may not be next month.
Related comparisons
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs Llama 4 Maverick
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.6 Terra
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs GLM 5.3
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs Minimax M3
- Claude Sonnet 5 vs GLM 5.3 Flash
Claude Sonnet 5 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning by category
Scope. VetEval measures model performance on veterinary examination items. It is not clinical advice, and no result here licenses a model for clinical use.