Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallba… scores 34.8 points higher (53.2 vs 18.4) but costs 9.6× as much to run the benchmark ($9063 vs $941; 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 18.4, and Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) when 18.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 53.2 | 18.4 | −65.4% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 65.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $9,063.11 | $940.97 | −89.6% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 89.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 104.03s | 65.32s | −37.2% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 37.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.60 / $3.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 65.4% less intelligence, 89.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 37.2% faster end-to-end.
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.
- Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-xhigh/qwen3-5-397b-a17b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-xhigh/qwen3-5-397b-a17b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill