Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Low)

Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, 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

AnthropicClaude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback)On the frontier

Intelligence: 64.60
Total cost: $22191

GoogleGemini 4 Carbon (Low)Off the frontier

Intelligence: 54.20
Total cost: $5725

Verdict

Depends on your budget

Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 10.4 points higher (64.6 vs 54.2) but costs 3.9× as much to run the benchmark ($22191 vs $5725; both flagship class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 54.2, and Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) when 54.2 is enough.

Metric	Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback)	Gemini 4 Carbon (Low)	Difference
Intelligence (higher is better)	64.6	54.2	−16.1% Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is 16.1% less intelligent
Total AA cost (lower is better)	$22,191.42	$5,725.02	−74.2% Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is 74.2% cheaper
End-to-end time (lower is better)	258.66s	9.45s	−96.3% Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is 96.3% 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 (Max, Default Fallback): 16.1% less intelligence, 74.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 96.3% faster end-to-end.

Open this matchup in the interactive picker Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback): what beats it Gemini 4 Carbon (Low): what beats it

Matchup

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Agents: Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-2/gemini-4-carbon-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-2/gemini-4-carbon-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill

Depends on your budget

Against the frontier

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