Model comparison
Claude Fable 5.1 vs Granite 4.2 8B
Claude Fable 5.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 69.0 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.2 8B costs 186× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Fable 5.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Fable 5.1 scores higher in 7 categories and Granite 4.2 8B in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Fable 5.1 leads 76.7 to 26.6.
- Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $10 / $50 for Claude Fable 5.1.
- Claude Fable 5.1 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Granite 4.2 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Claude Fable 5.1 | Granite 4.2 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | IBM |
| Noometry Index | 69.0 | 40.5 |
| Released | 2026-09-01 | — |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 131K |
| Max output | 128K | 118K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $10 | $0.06 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $50 | $0.25 |
| Results tracked | 52 | 11 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 74.7 (#1), Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1528 | 1380 |
| FrontierCode | 50.9% | — |
| CursorBench | 51.8% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1744 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 56.3% | — |
| SciCode | 63.1% | — |
| GSO | 88.2% | — |
| WeirdML | 92.9% | — |
| MirrorCode | 73.3% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 2,143 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Claude Fable 5.1: 50.7 (#5), Granite 4.2 8B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 68.6% | — |
| Remote Labor Index | 17.9% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 29.6% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 5,422 | — |
Reasoning Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 76.7 (#7), Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1526 | 1329 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 90% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 90% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 97.5% | — |
| CritPt | 31.1% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 47% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 57.1% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 58% | — |
| DTBench | 97.6% | — |
| LMCA | 65.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 164.7 | — |
Math Not comparable
Claude Fable 5.1: 89.6 (#4), Granite 4.2 8B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 90.2% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 87.8% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | — |
| ProofBench | 100% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1525 | — |
| FrontierMath Erdős | 0% | — |
Knowledge Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 69.6 (#6), Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1535 | 1384 |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 46.5% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 70.8% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Fable 5.1: 53.9 (#4), Granite 4.2 8B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1318 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 41.9% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 70% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1513 | — |
Multilingual Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 59.1 (#3), Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1507 | 1302 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1586 | 1366 |
| LMArena Russian | 1521 | 1285 |
| LMArena French | 1525 | — |
| LMArena German | 1500 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1543 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1534 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1516 | — |
Instruction Following Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 79.2 (#6), Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1517 | 1301 |
Long Context Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 46.7 (#20), Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1522 | 1324 |
Writing & Preference Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 79.2 (#2), Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1510 | 1320 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1507 | 1236 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1492 | 1301 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 2162 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Fable 5.1 better than Granite 4.2 8B?
Claude Fable 5.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 69.0 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.2 8B costs 186× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Fable 5.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Claude Fable 5.1 or Granite 4.2 8B?
Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Claude Fable 5.1 lists at $10 and $50.
Is Claude Fable 5.1 or Granite 4.2 8B better for coding?
Claude Fable 5.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 74.7 versus 40.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Claude Fable 5.1 does, with 1M tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Claude Fable 5.1 and Granite 4.2 8B share?
11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Fable 5.1 has 52 scored results on Noometry and Granite 4.2 8B has 11.