Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) vs Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) by Alibaba? 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 36.9 points higher (49.6 vs 12.7) but costs 48× as much to run the benchmark ($11161 vs $234; 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 12.7, and Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) when 12.7 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) | Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.6 | 12.7 | −74.4% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 74.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $11,160.86 | $233.56 | −97.9% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 97.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 109.09s | 21.63s | −80.2% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 80.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.23 / $2.30 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) vs Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback): 74.4% less intelligence, 97.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 80.2% 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.
- Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/qwen3-235b-a22b-instruct-2507-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/qwen3-235b-a22b-instruct-2507-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill