Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) by DeepSeek? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallb… scores 40.4 points higher (48.9 vs 8.5) but costs 157× as much to run the benchmark ($3983 vs $25.4; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallb… when you need intelligence above 8.5, and DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) when 8.5 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) | DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 48.9 | 8.5 | −82.6% DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) is 82.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,983.28 | $25.37 | −99.4% DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) is 99.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 14.35s | 13.85s | −3.5% DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) is 3.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.32 / $0.89 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback): 82.6% less intelligence, 99.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 3.5% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
- DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-medium/deepseek-v3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-medium/deepseek-v3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill