Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) vs Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B

Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.

Trade-off

AnthropicClaude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback)Off the frontier

Intelligence: 49.60
Total cost: $11161

AlibabaQwen3.8 2.4T A95BOff the frontier

Intelligence: 39.90
Total cost: $2632

Verdict

Depends on your budget

Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) scores 9.7 points higher (49.6 vs 39.9) but costs 4.2× as much to run the benchmark ($11161 vs $2632; both flagship class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) when you need intelligence above 39.9, and Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B when 39.9 is enough.

Metric	Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback)	Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B	Difference
Intelligence (higher is better)	49.6	39.9	−19.6% Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B is 19.6% less intelligent
Total AA cost (lower is better)	$11,160.86	$2,632.05	−76.4% Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B is 76.4% cheaper
End-to-end time (lower is better)	109.25s	61.67s	−43.6% Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B is 43.6% faster
Price per 1M tokens (in / out)	$10.0 / $50.0	$2.00 / $6.00
Input modalities	Text, Image	Text

Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B vs Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback): 19.6% less intelligence, 76.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 43.6% faster end-to-end.

Open this matchup in the interactive picker Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback): what beats it Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B: what beats it

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.
Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.

Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback)Qwen3.8 2.4T A95BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model

Matchup

Compare something else

Agents: Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/qwen3-8-2-4t-a95b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/qwen3-8-2-4t-a95b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill