Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Ministral 3 8B
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Ministral 3 8B by Mistral? 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 (Medium, Default Fallb… scores 43.4 points higher (48.9 vs 5.5) but costs 145× as much to run the benchmark ($3983 vs $27.5; 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 5.5, and Ministral 3 8B when 5.5 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Ministral 3 8B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 48.9 | 5.5 | −88.8% Ministral 3 8B is 88.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,983.28 | $27.47 | −99.3% Ministral 3 8B is 99.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 19.49s | 5.26s | −73.0% Ministral 3 8B is 73.0% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.15 / $0.15 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Ministral 3 8B vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback): 88.8% less intelligence, 99.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 73.0% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
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.
- Ministral 3 8B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback)Ministral 3 8BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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