Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs MiniMax-M3
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or MiniMax-M3 by MiniMax? 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 (Xhigh, Default Fallba… scores 24.0 points higher (53.2 vs 29.2) but costs 17× as much to run the benchmark ($9063 vs $538; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallba… when you need intelligence above 29.2, and MiniMax-M3 when 29.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | MiniMax-M3 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 53.2 | 29.2 | −45.1% MiniMax-M3 is 45.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $9,063.11 | $537.98 | −94.1% MiniMax-M3 is 94.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 86.63s | 25.05s | −71.1% MiniMax-M3 is 71.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.30 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
MiniMax-M3 vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 45.1% less intelligence, 94.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 71.1% faster end-to-end.
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.
- MiniMax-M3 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)MiniMax-M3Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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