Claude Fable 5.1 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Low, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-03.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) scores 19.2 points higher (57.7 vs 38.5) but costs 1.5× as much to run the benchmark ($5903 vs $3886; both flagship class). Pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Fable 5.1 (Low, Default Fallback).
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (Low, Default Fallback) | Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.5 | 57.7 | +49.9% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 49.9% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,885.94 | $5,903.03 | +51.9% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 51.9% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.82s | 11.62s | −1.7% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 1.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Low, Default Fallback): 49.9% more intelligence, 51.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 1.7% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5.1 (Low, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Astra (Xhigh) scores 55.30 for $3746.
- Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Claude Fable 5.1 (Low, Default Fallback)Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-low/gemini-4-carbon-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-low/gemini-4-carbon-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill