Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) by DeepSeek? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) scores 25.4 points higher (49.6 vs 24.2) but costs 75× as much to run the benchmark ($11161 vs $149; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) when you need intelligence above 24.2, and DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) when 24.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) | DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.6 | 24.2 | −51.2% DeepSeek V4 Flash 042… is 51.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $11,160.86 | $149.48 | −98.7% DeepSeek V4 Flash 042… is 98.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 85.37s | 103.74s | +21.5% DeepSeek V4 Flash 042… is 21.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.11 / $0.23 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) vs Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback): 51.2% less intelligence, 98.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 21.5% slower end-to-end.
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 V4 Flash 0420 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Max) scores 38.10 for $122.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/deepseek-v4-flash-0420 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/deepseek-v4-flash-0420?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill