Claude Fable 5.2 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Inkling (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.2 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Inkling (Xhigh) by Thinking Machines? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-09.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.2 (Medium, Default Fallb… scores 43.9 points higher (56.4 vs 12.5) but costs 2.7× as much to run the benchmark ($3360 vs $1237; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Claude Fable 5.2 (Medium, Default Fallb… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Inkling (Xhigh).
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.2 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Inkling (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.4 | 12.5 | −77.8% Inkling (Xhigh) is 77.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,359.66 | $1,236.66 | −63.2% Inkling (Xhigh) is 63.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | Not reported | 16.18s | — not comparable |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $8.00 / $40.0 | $1.00 / $4.05 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech |
Inkling (Xhigh) vs Claude Fable 5.2 (Medium, Default Fallback): 77.8% less intelligence, 63.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and end-to-end time not fully reported.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5.2 (Medium, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Inkling (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 54.60 for $1124.
Claude Fable 5.2 (Medium, Default Fallback)Inkling (Xhigh)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
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