Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Kimi K3
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning took 10 min 9 s and $0.012 at list price, Kimi K3 took 22 min 52 s and $1.92 at list price. Kimi K3 took 2.3× as long and cost 164× as much.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
NVIDIA · $0.20/M out · free route · 399 HN pts
Kimi K3
Moonshot AI · $15.00/M out · 9,870 HN pts
Pelican
Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle
Watch
Draw a mechanical wristwatch that shows the current local time, with a sweeping seconds hand and a date window. Make it look expensive.
Landing
Build the landing page for Lumen Cycles, a Copenhagen workshop that builds custom cargo bikes to order. Make it look like a real brand you would trust with 4,000 euros.
Breakout
Make a Breakout game I can play right now with the keyboard or the mouse. Give it several levels, a score and some juice.
Logo
Design a logo for Night Heron, an independent bookshop that only opens after dark.
About
Write the opening of the About us page for Patchbay, a three-person studio in Rotterdam that repairs vintage synthesizers. About 150 words.
Patchbay is a three-person studio in Rotterdam devoted to the restoration and repair of vintage synthesizers. We believe analog gear holds a living voice, and our purpose is to safeguard that sound for musicians, collectors, and creators who value authenticity. With hands-on experience in circuitry, voltage calibration, and component preservation, we treat every console, drum machine, or modular voice with meticulous care. Rotterdam’s eclectic artistic community fuels our commitment to keeping analog heritage alive, bridging past technology with present music. Whether rescuing a neglected lab unit or reviving a cherished polysynth, we approach each instrument as a unique piece of musical history, ensuring it performs as intended for years ahead. We love helping artists reconnect with the warmth and character only vintage hardware can offer. Our workshop sits in the heart of the city, where dusty circuit boards meet fresh compositions, and every repaired synth becomes part of a new musical story.
Patchbay is a small workshop in Rotterdam where old synthesizers come back to life. We are three people — a former recording engineer, a self-taught circuit obsessive, and a classically trained pianist who fell in love with broken machines — and between us we have spent decades coaxing sound out of equipment the rest of the world gave up on.
We started Patchbay because we kept meeting the same problem: beloved instruments sitting silent in attics and studio corners, written off as unfixable. A Juno with a dead voice chip. A Prophet that drifts out of tune. A Moog that hums when it shouldn't. To us, none of these are lost causes. They are instruments with history in them, and they deserve careful hands, original parts where possible, and honest work.
Every synth that leaves our bench is played, tested, and listened to — because that is what it was made for.
Specs and numbers
| Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Kimi K3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | NVIDIA | Moonshot AI |
| Made in | US | China |
| Released | 11 Aug 2026 | 16 Jul 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | free route (list $0.07/M) | $0.192 |
| Price out, per M tokens | free route (list $0.20/M) | $15.00 |
| Context | 262,144 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Weights | open | open |
| Hacker News points | 399 | 9,870 |
| Time for the six prompts | 10 min 9 s | 22 min 52 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $0.012 | $1.92 |
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning was cheaper: $1.91 less at list price, and less on each of the 6 prompts. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning was faster: 12 min 43 s less in total, and faster on 4 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, both Breakout games play.
Rebuild this screen experiment: Kimi K3's rebuild matched the screenshot at 68%; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning was not in it. Tea Garden experiment: Kimi K3's game passed 5 of 5 checks; Nemotron 3.5 Lightning was not in it.