Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 3.8 Flash (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Gemini 3.8 Flash (High) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallbac… scores 10.3 points higher (51.2 vs 40.9) but costs 3.2× as much to run the benchmark ($5242 vs $1623; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 40.9, and Gemini 3.8 Flash (High) when 40.9 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallback) | Gemini 3.8 Flash (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 51.2 | 40.9 | −20.1% Gemini 3.8 Flash (Hig… is 20.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,241.59 | $1,622.73 | −69.0% Gemini 3.8 Flash (Hig… is 69.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 26.71s | 30.36s | +13.7% Gemini 3.8 Flash (Hig… is 13.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.75 / $3.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 3.8 Flash (High) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallback): 20.1% less intelligence, 69.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 13.7% slower end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Gemini 3.8 Flash (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-high/gemini-3-8-flash · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-high/gemini-3-8-flash?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill