Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) vs DeepSeek V3 0324
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V3 0324 by DeepSeek? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) scores 39.9 points higher (49.6 vs 9.7) but costs 562× as much to run the benchmark ($11161 vs $19.9; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) when you need intelligence above 9.7, and DeepSeek V3 0324 when 9.7 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.6 | 9.7 | −80.4% DeepSeek V3 0324 is 80.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $11,160.86 | $19.87 | −99.8% DeepSeek V3 0324 is 99.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 71.92s | 4.96s | −93.1% DeepSeek V3 0324 is 93.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.24 / $0.90 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
DeepSeek V3 0324 vs Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback): 80.4% less intelligence, 99.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 93.1% faster end-to-end.
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.
- DeepSeek V3 0324 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback)DeepSeek V3 0324Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
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