Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallback) vs Mistral Medium 3.5
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Mistral Medium 3.5 by Mistral? 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 57.2 points higher (61.8 vs 4.6) but costs 6.4× as much to run the benchmark ($7106 vs $1103; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 4.6, and Mistral Medium 3.5 when 4.6 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallback) | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 61.8 | 4.6 | −92.6% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 92.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,105.77 | $1,103.02 | −84.5% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 84.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 35.25s | 17.23s | −51.1% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 51.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $8.00 / $40.0 | $1.50 / $7.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallback): 92.6% less intelligence, 84.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 51.1% 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.
- Mistral Medium 3.5 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 52.50 for $718.
Claude Fable 5.2 (High, Default Fallback)Mistral Medium 3.5Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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