Claude Fable 5.2 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Low)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.2 (Low, 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
Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) scores 0.3 points higher (54.2 vs 53.9) but costs 2.0× as much to run the benchmark ($5725 vs $2862; both flagship class). Pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Fable 5.2 (Low, Default Fallback).
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.2 (Low, Default Fallback) | Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 53.9 | 54.2 | +0.6% Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is 0.6% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,861.78 | $5,725.02 | +100.1% Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is 2.0× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 22.57s | 9.45s | −58.1% Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is 58.1% 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 (Low, Default Fallback): 0.6% more intelligence, 100.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 58.1% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5.2 (Low, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 54.60 for $1124.
- 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 (Low, Default Fallback)Gemini 4 Carbon (Low)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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