Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) vs Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) by Anthropic or Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) by NVIDIA? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) scores 36.8 points higher (49.6 vs 12.8) but costs 8.5× as much to run the benchmark ($11161 vs $1319; 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 12.8, and Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) when 12.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) | Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.6 | 12.8 | −74.2% Nemotron 3 Super 120B… is 74.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $11,160.86 | $1,318.62 | −88.2% Nemotron 3 Super 120B… is 88.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 109.02s | 16.78s | −84.6% Nemotron 3 Super 120B… is 84.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.30 / $0.90 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) vs Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback): 74.2% less intelligence, 88.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 84.6% 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.
- Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/nvidia-nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/nvidia-nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill