Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback)
Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback): 3.2% more intelligence, 85.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 74.5% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) | Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.6 | 51.2 | +3.2% Claude Opus 5.5 (Medi… is 3.2% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $11,160.86 | $1,626.81 | −85.4% Claude Opus 5.5 (Medi… is 85.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 85.62s | 21.83s | −74.5% Claude Opus 5.5 (Medi… is 74.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 57.60 for $8708.
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback)Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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