Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3.8 Max
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8 Max by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallbac… scores 11.0 points higher (51.2 vs 40.2) but costs 1.7× as much to run the benchmark ($5242 vs $3172; both flagship class). Pick Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallbac… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.8 Max.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallback) | Qwen3.8 Max | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 51.2 | 40.2 | −21.5% Qwen3.8 Max is 21.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,241.59 | $3,172.37 | −39.5% Qwen3.8 Max is 39.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 28.41s | 61.90s | +117.9% Qwen3.8 Max is 117.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 Max vs Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallback): 21.5% less intelligence, 39.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 117.9% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
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.
- Qwen3.8 Max is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Claude Fable 5.1 (High, Default Fallback)Qwen3.8 MaxToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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