Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallb… scores 28.7 points higher (48.9 vs 20.2) but costs 2.0× as much to run the benchmark ($3983 vs $2022; both flagship class). Pick Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallb… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning).
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 48.9 | 20.2 | −58.7% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 58.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,983.28 | $2,022.49 | −49.2% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 49.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 18.68s | 14.49s | −22.4% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 22.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback): 58.7% less intelligence, 49.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 22.4% 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.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback)Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-medium/qwen3-8-27b-non-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-medium/qwen3-8-27b-non-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill