Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) vs DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (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 14.8 points higher (49.6 vs 34.8) but costs 10× as much to run the benchmark ($11161 vs $1081; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) when you need intelligence above 34.8, and DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) when 34.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.6 | 34.8 | −29.8% DeepSeek V4 Flash Vis… is 29.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $11,160.86 | $1,081.42 | −90.3% DeepSeek V4 Flash Vis… is 90.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 85.37s | 15.95s | −81.3% DeepSeek V4 Flash Vis… is 81.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.44 / $1.32 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) vs Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback): 29.8% less intelligence, 90.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 81.3% faster 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 Vision (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/deepseek-v4-flash-vision · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/deepseek-v4-flash-vision?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill