Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Claude Fable 5.2 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Fable 5.2 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-10.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.2 (Xhigh, Default Fallba… scores 19.0 points higher (62.2 vs 43.2) but costs 2.4× as much to run the benchmark ($11742 vs $4897; both flagship class). Pick Claude Fable 5.2 (Xhigh, Default Fallba… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallb….
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Claude Fable 5.2 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 43.2 | 62.2 | +44.0% Claude Fable 5.2 (Xhi… is 44.0% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,896.58 | $11,741.62 | +139.8% Claude Fable 5.2 (Xhi… is 2.4× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.45s | 102.03s | +658.6% Claude Fable 5.2 (Xhi… is 658.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $8.00 / $40.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Fable 5.2 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback): 44.0% more intelligence, 139.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 658.6% slower end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 57.40 for $4766.
- Claude Fable 5.2 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-medium/claude-fable-5-2-xhigh · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-medium/claude-fable-5-2-xhigh?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill