Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) scores 31.2 points higher (49.6 vs 18.4) but costs 12× as much to run the benchmark ($11161 vs $941; 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 18.4, and Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) when 18.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) | Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.6 | 18.4 | −62.9% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 62.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $11,160.86 | $940.97 | −91.6% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 91.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 109.25s | 65.15s | −40.4% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 40.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.60 / $3.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) vs Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback): 62.9% less intelligence, 91.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 40.4% 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.
- Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) 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/qwen3-5-397b-a17b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/qwen3-5-397b-a17b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill