Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 44.5 points higher (53.4 vs 8.9) but costs 894× as much to run the benchmark ($13129 vs $14.7; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 8.9, and Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) when 8.9 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback) | Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 53.4 | 8.9 | −83.3% Gemma 4 E4B (Reasonin… is 83.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $13,128.86 | $14.68 | −99.9% Gemma 4 E4B (Reasonin… is 99.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 201.72s | 57.75s | −71.4% Gemma 4 E4B (Reasonin… is 71.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.02 / $0.10 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Max, Default Fallback): 83.3% less intelligence, 99.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 71.4% faster end-to-end.
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.
- Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1/gemma-4-e4b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1/gemma-4-e4b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill