Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) vs GPT-5.5 (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) by Anthropic or GPT-5.5 (High) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) scores 12.6 points higher (49.6 vs 37.0) but costs 3.3× as much to run the benchmark ($11161 vs $3411; both flagship class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) when you need intelligence above 37.0, and GPT-5.5 (High) when 37.0 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) | GPT-5.5 (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.6 | 37.0 | −25.4% GPT-5.5 (High) is 25.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $11,160.86 | $3,410.76 | −69.4% GPT-5.5 (High) is 69.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 85.37s | 19.56s | −77.1% GPT-5.5 (High) is 77.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $5.00 / $30.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-5.5 (High) vs Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback): 25.4% less intelligence, 69.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 77.1% 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.
- GPT-5.5 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback)GPT-5.5 (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/gpt-5-5-high · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/gpt-5-5-high?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill