Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)

Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.

Trade-off

AnthropicClaude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Off the frontier

Intelligence: 53.20
Total cost: $9063

AnthropicClaude Opus 4.8 (Max)Off the frontier

Intelligence: 41.80
Total cost: $6874

Verdict

Depends on your budget

Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallba… scores 11.4 points higher (53.2 vs 41.8) but costs 1.3× as much to run the benchmark ($9063 vs $6874; both flagship class). Pick Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallba… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Opus 4.8 (Max).

Metric	Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)	Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)	Difference
Intelligence (higher is better)	53.2	41.8	−21.4% Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) is 21.4% less intelligent
Total AA cost (lower is better)	$9,063.11	$6,873.86	−24.2% Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) is 24.2% cheaper
End-to-end time (lower is better)	111.44s	51.76s	−53.6% Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) is 53.6% faster
Price per 1M tokens (in / out)	$10.0 / $50.0	$5.00 / $25.0
Input modalities	Text, Image	Text, Image

Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 21.4% less intelligence, 24.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 53.6% faster end-to-end.

Open this matchup in the interactive picker Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): what beats it Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): what beats it

Today's Pareto frontier

Against the frontier

Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 57.60 for $8708.
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.

Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model

Matchup

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Agents: Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-xhigh/claude-opus-4-8 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-xhigh/claude-opus-4-8?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill