Setup guide

Jetson Orin Nano Super for local LLMs.

Same board, a free software update, and a lot more speed. Here is what Super mode changes, what to buy, and how to start.

Updated 2026-10-17. Every speed links to its source; every price is sourced and dated.

What Super mode changes.

Model (MLC, INT4)Original tok/sSuper tok/sChange
SmolLM2 1.7B4164.5+57%
Llama 3.2 3B27.743.1+56%
Phi-3.5 3.8B24.738.1+54%
Gemma 2 2B21.535+63%
Qwen2.5 7B14.221.8+54%
Llama 3.1 8B1419.1+36%
Gemma 2 9B7.29.2+28%

Same hardware, same source: NVIDIA Technical Blog, JetPack 6.2 Super Mode ↗. The % change is simple arithmetic on the two sourced numbers.

The runtime matters as much as the board: NVIDIA measured 43.1 tok/s on Llama 3.2 3B with MLC (source ↗), while an independent Ollama test measured 6.31 tok/s on the same model (source ↗).

What to buy.

Good to know: NVIDIA ships the dev kit with its 19V power supply, so you do not need to buy one. Storage is not included: NVIDIA asks for a 64GB+ UHS-1 microSD card or an NVMe SSD. source ↗

Dev kit + microSD, approximate

≈ $449.99

Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit $399 + Samsung PRO Plus 128GB microSD $50.99. Sourced prices at time of writing; they change often, shipping and tax not included.

Set it up.

  1. Flash JetPack to a 64GB+ microSD card (or an NVMe SSD) using NVIDIA's quick start guide. Super mode arrived with JetPack 6.2. NVIDIA quick start ↗
  2. Switch to the Super power mode (MAXN SUPER) described in NVIDIA's announcement. NVIDIA blog ↗
  3. Pick a runtime. NVIDIA's fastest numbers use MLC. Ollama is the easiest start and its Linux script supports Jetson:
    curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh
    Ollama Linux install ↗
  4. Measure and share. ollama run llama3.2:3b --verbose prints the eval rate. Submit your run

Stay in the loop.

New boards, new runtimes, new numbers. One email a month, no hype.