Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-10.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 54.6 points higher (64.6 vs 10.0) but costs 8.4× as much to run the benchmark ($22191 vs $2642; both flagship class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 10.0, and Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) when 10.0 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback) | Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 64.6 | 10.0 | −84.5% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 84.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $22,191.42 | $2,641.61 | −88.1% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 88.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 258.66s | 14.24s | −94.5% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 94.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $8.00 / $40.0 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) vs Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback): 84.5% less intelligence, 88.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 94.5% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5.2 (Max, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 54.60 for $1124.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-2/qwen3-8-27b-non-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-2/qwen3-8-27b-non-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill