Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 4 Argon (High)

Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Gemini 4 Argon (High) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.

Trade-off

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

Intelligence: 53.40
Total cost: $13129

GoogleGemini 4 Argon (High)Off the frontier

Intelligence: 52.60
Total cost: $2407

Verdict

Depends on your budget

Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 0.8 points higher (53.4 vs 52.6) but costs 5.5× as much to run the benchmark ($13129 vs $2407; both flagship class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 52.6, and Gemini 4 Argon (High) when 52.6 is enough.

Metric	Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback)	Gemini 4 Argon (High)	Difference
Intelligence (higher is better)	53.4	52.6	−1.5% Gemini 4 Argon (High) is 1.5% less intelligent
Total AA cost (lower is better)	$13,128.86	$2,407.24	−81.7% Gemini 4 Argon (High) is 81.7% cheaper
End-to-end time (lower is better)	224.39s	64.86s	−71.1% Gemini 4 Argon (High) is 71.1% faster
Price per 1M tokens (in / out)	$10.0 / $50.0	$2.00 / $10.0
Input modalities	Text, Image	Text, Image

Gemini 4 Argon (High) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback): 1.5% less intelligence, 81.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 71.1% faster end-to-end.

Open this matchup in the interactive picker Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback): what beats it Gemini 4 Argon (High): what beats it

Today's Pareto frontier

Against the frontier

Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 57.60 for $8708.
Gemini 4 Argon (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.

Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback)Gemini 4 Argon (High)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/gemini-4-argon · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1/gemini-4-argon?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill