Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Low)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-10.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallbac… scores 7.6 points higher (61.8 vs 54.2) but costs 1.2× as much to run the benchmark ($7106 vs $5725; both flagship class). Pick Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallbac… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Gemini 4 Carbon (Low).
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallback) | Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 61.8 | 54.2 | −12.3% Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is 12.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,105.77 | $5,725.02 | −19.4% Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is 19.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 36.05s | 9.45s | −73.8% Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is 73.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $8.00 / $40.0 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) vs Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallback): 12.3% less intelligence, 19.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 73.8% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 57.40 for $4766.
Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallback)Gemini 4 Carbon (Low)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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