Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Granite 4.2 30B

Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Granite 4.2 30B by IBM? 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

IBMGranite 4.2 30BOff the frontier

Intelligence: 12.70
Total cost: $111

Verdict

Depends on your budget

Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallba… scores 40.5 points higher (53.2 vs 12.7) but costs 82× as much to run the benchmark ($9063 vs $111; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallba… when you need intelligence above 12.7, and Granite 4.2 30B when 12.7 is enough.

Metric	Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)	Granite 4.2 30B	Difference
Intelligence (higher is better)	53.2	12.7	−76.1% Granite 4.2 30B is 76.1% less intelligent
Total AA cost (lower is better)	$9,063.11	$110.83	−98.8% Granite 4.2 30B is 98.8% cheaper
End-to-end time (lower is better)	108.69s	65.19s	−40.0% Granite 4.2 30B is 40.0% faster
Price per 1M tokens (in / out)	$10.0 / $50.0	$0.16 / $0.65
Input modalities	Text, Image	Text

Granite 4.2 30B vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 76.1% less intelligence, 98.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 40.0% faster end-to-end.

Open this matchup in the interactive picker Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): what beats it Granite 4.2 30B: 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.
Granite 4.2 30B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.

Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Granite 4.2 30BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights 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/granite-4-2-30b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-xhigh/granite-4-2-30b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill