Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)
Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 0.8% more intelligence, 76.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 63.2% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 53.2 | 53.6 | +0.8% Claude Opus 5.5 (High… is 0.8% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $9,063.11 | $2,172.43 | −76.0% Claude Opus 5.5 (High… is 76.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 111.44s | 41.01s | −63.2% Claude Opus 5.5 (High… is 63.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
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 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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