Claude Fable 5.1 vs Gemini 4 Argon
Full profiles: Claude Fable 5.1 (Anthropic) and Gemini 4 Argon (Google): every benchmark, price and rank.
Updated · Data from 10 sources
As of 21 Oct 2026, Claude Fable 5.1 (max) and Gemini 4 Argon (high) are neck and neck on quality (70.6 vs 71.0 on the BenchLeader Index, inside the ±5.3 margin of error), and Gemini 4 Argon (high) costs 5.0× less, which makes it the better buy for most workloads. Gemini 4 Argon (high)'s current price runs until 30 Nov 2026; from 1 Dec 2026 Gemini 4 Argon (high) costs 2.5× less ($8.00 vs $20.00 per 1M blended); on use case, pick Claude Fable 5.1 for long context (68 vs 65), Gemini 4 Argon for agents & tools (72 vs 61).
Claude Fable 5.1 benchmarks max Anthropic
Gemini 4 Argon benchmarks high GoogleOpen in the comparison toolWhich to pick for…
The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.
| Use case | Pick | Why | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | Claude Fable 5.1 | 75 vs 72 category score; Arena WebDev 1743 vs 1678 | Medium |
| Agents & tool use | Gemini 4 Argon | 72 vs 61 category score; Arena Agent 12.1 vs 14.3 | High |
| Maths | Claude Fable 5.1 | 73 vs 71 category score; FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 90.2% vs 86.0% | Medium |
| Reasoning | Claude Fable 5.1 | 77 vs 75 category score; CritPt 29.7% vs 27.1% | Medium |
| Knowledge | Claude Fable 5.1 | 78 vs 77 category score; AA-Omniscience 43.5 vs 42.4 | Medium |
| Long documents | Claude Fable 5.1 | 68 vs 65 category score; AA-LCR 85.3% vs 79.7% | Medium |
| Chat quality (human preference) | Gemini 4 Argon | 70 vs 73 on Arena votes | Medium |
| Lowest cost | Gemini 4 Argon | $4.00 vs $20.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.160 vs $0.800; from 1 Dec 2026: $8.00 vs $20.00 | – |
| Fastest first answer | Gemini 4 Argon | 221.4 s (Claude Fable 5.1 (max)) vs 48.5 s (Gemini 4 Argon (high)) to the first answer token | – |
| High volume on a budget | Neither flagship | A smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs | – |
Key differences
- Claude Fable 5.1 (max) and Gemini 4 Argon (high) are neck and neck on quality (70.6 vs 71.0, within the ±5.3 margin).
- Claude Fable 5.1 (max) is stronger in coding, composite, knowledge, long context, maths, multimodal, reasoning.
- Gemini 4 Argon (high) is stronger in agents & tools, human preference.
- Gemini 4 Argon (high) is 5.0× cheaper ($4.00 vs $20.00 per 1M blended) until 30 Nov 2026, then $8.00 vs $20.00 from 1 Dec 2026.
At a glance
| Spec | Claude Fable 5.1 | Gemini 4 Argon |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | Anthropic | |
| Released | 1 Sept 2026 | 30 Sept 2026 |
| Generally available | 1 Sept 2026 | 13 Oct 2026 |
| Context window (tokens) | 1,000,000 | 1,048,576 |
| Max output (tokens) | – | 65,536 (up to 1,048,576 with long decode) |
| Input types | – | text, image, video, audio, PDF |
| Reasoning effort settings | – | low, medium, high |
| Compared at | Claude Fable 5.1 (max) | Gemini 4 Argon (high) |
| Open weights | No | No |
| Price in / out / cached input per 1M | $10.00 / $50.00 / $0.250 | $2.00 / $10.00 / $0.100 |
| Announced price change | None announced | $4.00 / $20.00 / $0.200 from 1 Dec 2026 |
| API model ID | – | gemini-4-argon |
| Where to use it | – | Gemini API (AI Studio), Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, Gemini app |
Limits, availability and announced prices from the vendors' own pages: ai.google.dev, ai.google.dev pricing (checked 20 Oct 2026). Everything else is from the day's data.
Category by category
Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.
| Category | Claude Fable 5.1 (max) | Gemini 4 Argon (high) | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reasoning | 76.9 | 74.9 | Claude Fable 5.1 |
| Coding | 75.0 | 72.2 | Claude Fable 5.1 |
| Agents & tools | 60.8 | 72.0 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Maths | 72.9 | 70.5 | Claude Fable 5.1 |
| Knowledge | 77.5 | 76.5 | Claude Fable 5.1 |
| Human preference | 70.2 | 72.9 | Gemini 4 Argon |
| Multimodal | 67.1 | – | not comparable |
| Long context | 67.9 | 64.9 | Claude Fable 5.1 |
| Composite | 89.4 | 88.5 | level |
Where sources disagree
Across the 39 benchmarks both have, Claude Fable 5.1 leads 18, Gemini 4 Argon leads 20 and 1 is a tie. Independent sources split: Claude Fable 5.1 leads on AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2; Gemini 4 Argon leads on Arena Text.
| Overall index | Claude Fable 5.1 (max) | Gemini 4 Argon (high) | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | 70.6 | 71.0 | neck and neck |
| AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2 | 53.4 | 52.6 | Claude Fable 5.1 |
| Arena Text | 1502 | 1524 | Gemini 4 Argon |
Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).
Price, speed and latency
List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page; suite cost is what Artificial Analysis paid to run its whole Intelligence Index.
| Measure | Claude Fable 5.1 (max) | Gemini 4 Argon (high) |
|---|---|---|
| Blended price per 1M tokens, until 30 Nov 2026 | $20.00 | $4.00 |
| Input / output per 1M | $10.00 / $50.00 | $2.00 / $10.00 |
| Blended price per 1M from 1 Dec 2026 | $20.00 | $8.00 |
| Input / output per 1M from 1 Dec 2026 | $10.00 / $50.00 | $4.00 / $20.00 |
| Cached input per 1M | $0.250 | $0.100 |
| Price per task: chat reply | $0.019 | $0.0038 |
| Price per task: summarize a 30-page report | $0.150 | $0.030 |
| Price per task: code edit | $0.135 | $0.027 |
| Price per task: agentic coding session | $0.800 | $0.160 |
| Price per task: structured extraction | $0.030 | $0.0060 |
| Cost to run a full benchmark suite | $7.63 | $1.99 |
| Output speed | 69 tok/s | 83 tok/s |
| Time to first answer | 221.4 s | 48.5 s |
| Time to a complete answer | 228.7 s | 54.6 s |
Per token is not per task: on Artificial Analysis' full suite Claude Fable 5.1 (max) cost $7.63 and Gemini 4 Argon (high) $1.99, because Gemini 4 Argon (high) used about 1.3× as many tokens for the same work, which a per-token price hides.
Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Claude Fable 5.1 (max) scores 70.6 and takes 221 s to its first answer token; Claude Fable 5.1 (xhigh) scores 69.5 in 83 s, Claude Fable 5.1 (high) scores 69.4 in 21 s. Gemini 4 Argon (high) scores 71.0 and takes 49 s to its first answer token; Gemini 4 Argon scores 63.3 in 4 s. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.
Every benchmark
129 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.
| Metric | Publisher | Claude Fable 5.1 (max) | Gemini 4 Argon (high) |
|---|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | BenchLeader | 70.6 | 71.0 |
| Agents & tools score | BenchLeader | 60.8 | 72.0 |
| Coding score | BenchLeader | 75.0 | 72.2 |
| Composite score | BenchLeader | 89.4 | 88.5 |
| Human preference score | BenchLeader | 70.2 | 72.9 |
| Knowledge score | BenchLeader | 77.5 | 76.5 |
| Long context score | BenchLeader | 67.9 | 64.9 |
| Maths score | BenchLeader | 72.9 | 70.5 |
| Multimodal score | BenchLeader | 67.1 | – |
| Reasoning score | BenchLeader | 76.9 | 74.9 |
| Blended price $/M | BenchLeader | $20.00 | $4.00 |
| Output speed | BenchLeader | 69 tok/s | 83 tok/s |
| Time to first answer | BenchLeader | 221.4 s | 48.5 s |
| Context window | BenchLeader | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Reasoning | |||
| GPQA Diamond | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | – | 96.4% |
| Humanity's Last Exam | Scale AI / CAIS | 46.5%† | – |
| Arena Hard Prompts | Arena (LMArena) | 1521 | 1549 |
| LiveBench 2.0 Reasoning | LiveBench | 91.7%† | 95.1%† |
| LiveBench 1.0 Reasoning | LiveBench | 91.7% | – |
| GPQA Diamond (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 93.7% | – |
| Humanity's Last Exam (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 59.1% | 57.1% |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | Vals AI | 93.4%† | – |
| ARC-AGI-1 | ARC Prize | 97.5% | 98.5% |
| ARC-AGI-2 | ARC Prize | 90.0% | 91.3% |
| ARC-AGI-3 | ARC Prize | – | 97.3% |
| CritPt | Artificial Analysis | 29.7% | 27.1% |
| MysteryMechanism | Vals AI | 47.8%† | 45.5% |
| Chess Puzzles | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 48.0% | 59.0% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 58.0% | 64.0% |
| LMCA | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 65.5%† | 63.7% |
| DTBench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 97.6%† | 97.3% |
| Coding | |||
| SciCode | SciCode | 63.1% | 61.8% |
| WeirdML | WeirdML | 92.9% | – |
| FrontierCode | Cognition | 50.9%† | 47.5%† |
| GSO-Bench | GSO-Bench | 88.2%† | – |
| Arena Coding | Arena (LMArena) | 1537 | 1559 |
| Arena WebDev | Arena (LMArena) | 1743 | 1678 |
| LiveBench 2.0 Coding | LiveBench | 97.7%† | 89.7%† |
| LiveBench 1.0 Coding | LiveBench | 86.4% | – |
Show all 129 benchmarks
| Metric | Publisher | Claude Fable 5.1 (max) | Gemini 4 Argon (high) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | |||
| LiveCodeBench | Vals AI | 90.5%† | – |
| IOI | Vals AI | 90.8%† | 100.0% |
| Code Migration | Vals AI | 54.6%† | 68.2% |
| ProgramBench | Vals AI | 7.0%† | 2.5% |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 | Vals AI | 28.0%† | 21.2% |
| Vibe Code Bench v1.1 | Vals AI | 90.3%† | 91.9% |
| SWE Atlas: Codebase QnA | Scale AI SEAL | 60.0%† | – |
| SWE Atlas: Refactoring | Scale AI SEAL | 56.7%† | – |
| SWE Atlas: Test Writing | Scale AI SEAL | 67.0%† | – |
| MirrorCode | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 73.3%† | – |
| CursorBench | Cursor | 51.8% | 52.9% |
| ALE-Bench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 2143.2† | 2100.1 |
| FrontierSWE | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 56.3% | 55.0% |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 52.0% | 57.1% |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 91.4% | – |
| Startrise Frontend | Startrise | 77.1%† | – |
| FrontierCode 1.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 49.0% | 43.5% |
| Agents & tools | |||
| Terminal-Bench | Terminal-Bench | 57.9% | – |
| Remote Labor Index | Scale AI / CAIS | 17.9%† | – |
| APEX-Agents | Mercor | 68.6%† | 82.4%† |
| Arena Agent | Arena (LMArena) | 14.3 | 12.1 |
| LiveBench Long Agentic | LiveBench | 80.8%† | 69.9%† |
| LiveBench Browser | LiveBench | 100.0%† | 92.0%† |
| LiveBench Agentic Coding | LiveBench | 66.1% | – |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | Vals AI | 85.0%† | – |
| MCP Atlas | Scale AI SEAL | 87.2%† | – |
| HiL-Bench | Scale AI SEAL | 61.5%† | 62.0%† |
| GDPval-AA v2.1 | Artificial Analysis | 62.7% | 56.2% |
| τ³-Banking (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 47.2% | – |
| ITBench SRE (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 49.5% | – |
| Analyst Agent (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 57.5% | 48.8% |
| CUA-bench | Vals AI | 13.2% | 4.8% |
| CyberBench | Vals AI | 70.4%† | 77.9% |
| Finance Agent v2 | Vals AI | 58.9%† | 65.4% |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark | Vals AI | – | 27.1% |
| Legal Research Bench | Vals AI | 55.3%† | 54.8% |
| SkillsBench | Vals AI | 61.5%† | – |
| SREBench | Vals AI | 22.9%† | 44.3% |
| Tax Agent Bench | Vals AI | 49.2%† | 44.6% |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals) | Vals AI | 58.1%† | 57.6% |
| Terminal-Bench Science | Vals AI | 40.0%† | 44.3% |
| Time Horizon Index: KSP | Vals AI | 63.3%† | 52.5% |
| Arena Search | Arena (LMArena) | 1233† | – |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Andon Labs | 5421.6† | 13718.2† |
| AutomationBench | Artificial Analysis | 59.4% | 77.5% |
| GDP.pdf (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 26.2% | 21.8% |
| Harvey LAB-AA v1.1 | Harvey | 6.4% | 3.9% |
| AA-Briefcase v1.1 | Artificial Analysis | 1672 | 1486 |
| Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 43.3% | 52.9% |
| CWE-Bench (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 50.8% | – |
| DeepSec-Bench (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 23.5% | – |
| CyberGym end-to-end (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 0.8% | – |
| FACTS Search | – | 84.0%† | |
| Maths | |||
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 90.2% | 86.0% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 87.8% | 78.0% |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| ProofBench | Vals AI | 100.0% | 99.0%† |
| LiveBench Mathematics | LiveBench | 97.0% | – |
| Arena Maths | Arena (LMArena) | 1525 | 1529 |
| Knowledge | |||
| SimpleQA Verified | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 70.8% | 76.0% |
| LiveBench 2.0 Data Analysis | LiveBench | 80.3%† | 85.2%† |
| LiveBench Research | LiveBench | 82.0%† | 83.1%† |
| LiveBench 1.0 Data Analysis | LiveBench | 80.3% | – |
| AA-Omniscience | Artificial Analysis | 43.5 | 42.4 |
| MMLU-Pro | Vals AI | 92.4%† | – |
| LegalBench | Vals AI | 88.5%† | 88.3% |
| TaxEval | Vals AI | 76.0%† | – |
| PRBench Finance | Scale AI SEAL | 50.8%† | 49.9%† |
| PRBench Legal | Scale AI SEAL | 51.6%† | 49.4%† |
| BioMysteryBench | Vals AI | – | 76.3% |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark | Vals AI | 76.7%† | 75.2% |
| MedCode | Vals AI | 53.5%† | 58.8% |
| MedScribe | Vals AI | 91.3%† | 87.4% |
| Public Benefits Bench | Vals AI | 74.9%† | 69.8% |
| EBR-bench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 57.1% | 64.8% |
| GDP.pdf | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 27.6% | 28.4% |
| AA-Omniscience: accuracy | Artificial Analysis | 67.2% | 49.9% |
| AA-Omniscience: non-hallucination | Artificial Analysis | 27.4% | 84.9% |
| Instruction following | |||
| LiveBench Language | LiveBench | 89.5% | – |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | LiveBench | 73.0% | – |
| Arena Instruction Following | Arena (LMArena) | 1499 | 1527 |
| Human preference | |||
| Arena Text | Arena (LMArena) | 1502 | 1524 |
| Arena Creative Writing | Arena (LMArena) | 1485 | 1516 |
| Arena Multi-turn | Arena (LMArena) | 1487 | 1552 |
| Arena Longer Queries | Arena (LMArena) | 1509 | 1543 |
| Multimodal | |||
| Arena Vision | Arena (LMArena) | 1320 | – |
| LiveBench Design | LiveBench | 83.4%† | 73.7%† |
| MMMU-Pro (Vals) | Vals AI | 90.6%† | – |
| MortgageTax | Vals AI | 70.8%† | – |
| SAGE | Vals AI | 48.5%† | 53.6% |
| AudioMC | Scale AI SEAL | – | 58.4% |
| AudioMC (text output) | Scale AI SEAL | – | 58.4% |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 41.9%† | 54.5%† |
| AA-3D | Artificial Analysis | 1133 | 1154 |
| Long context | |||
| AA-LCR | Artificial Analysis | 85.3% | 79.7% |
| Arena Document | Arena (LMArena) | 1493 | – |
| MLCR | Artificial Analysis | 71.1% | – |
| Composite | |||
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 166.5† | 166.4† |
| LiveBench 2.0 | LiveBench | 88.0%† | 84.1%† |
| LiveBench 1.0 | LiveBench | 83.4% | – |
| AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2 | Artificial Analysis | 53.4 | 52.6 |
| Vals Index | Vals AI | – | 69.2 |
| AA Cyber Index | Artificial Analysis | 25.0 | – |
| Safety & honesty | |||
| FORTRESS | Scale AI SEAL | 13.7%† | – |
Data as of 2026-10-21. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.
What changed
- Gemini 4 Argon: list price moves to $4.00 / $20.00 per 1M input / output tokens (announced).
- Claude Fable 5.1 (max): 1 score revision.
- Gemini 4 Argon (high): 1 new result (Harvey LAB-AA v1.1); 2 score revisions.
- Claude Fable 5.1 (max): BenchLeader Index 70.0 → 70.6.
- Gemini 4 Argon (high): 3 new results (LMCA, DTBench, ALE-Bench).
- Gemini 4 Argon (high): 5 new results (Analyst Agent (AA), FrontierCode 1.1 (AA), Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)…); 1 score revision.
- Gemini 4 Argon (high): 6 new results (EBR-bench, Time Horizon Index: KSP, Vibe Code Bench 1-100…); 1 score revision.
- Gemini 4 Argon (high): BenchLeader Index 70.5 → 71.1.
- Claude Fable 5.1 (max): 2 score revisions.
- Gemini 4 Argon (high): 10 new results (FrontierMath Tiers 1–3, FrontierMath Tier 4, OTIS Mock AIME…); 1 score revision.
Related comparisons
- Claude Fable 5.1 vs Claude Opus 5.5
- Claude Fable 5.1 vs Muse Wonder Full
- Claude Fable 5.1 vs GPT-6 Astra
- Gemini 4 Argon vs Claude Opus 5.5
- Gemini 4 Argon vs Muse Wonder Full
- Gemini 4 Argon vs GPT-6 Astra
- Claude Opus 5 vs Gemini 4 Argon
- Claude Fable 5.1 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash
Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for coding · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs
Claude Fable 5.1 vs Gemini 4 Argon: questions
- Is Claude Fable 5.1 better than Gemini 4 Argon?
- Claude Fable 5.1 (max) and Gemini 4 Argon (high) are neck and neck on quality (70.6 vs 71.0, within the ±5.3 margin). The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; the two are within the margin of error as of 2026-10-21, so check the category scores for your use.
- Which is cheaper, Claude Fable 5.1 or Gemini 4 Argon, and will that change?
- Gemini 4 Argon is cheaper today: $4.00 against $20.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. Yes, that changes: Gemini 4 Argon's list price changes on 1 Dec 2026, and from then Gemini 4 Argon is cheaper ($8.00 vs $20.00 blended).
- Is Claude Fable 5.1 better than Gemini 4 Argon for coding?
- Claude Fable 5.1 scores higher in coding (75 vs 72 on the category index, where 50 is average). On Arena WebDev, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 1743 for Claude Fable 5.1 against 1678 for Gemini 4 Argon.
- Is Claude Fable 5.1 better than Gemini 4 Argon for agents and tool use?
- Gemini 4 Argon scores higher in agentic tasks (72 vs 61 on the category index, where 50 is average). On Arena Agent, the top shared agents & tools benchmark, it is 14.3 for Claude Fable 5.1 against 12.1 for Gemini 4 Argon.
- Which is better for long documents?
- Claude Fable 5.1 scores higher on long-context benchmarks (68 vs 65). Both take about 1M tokens: Claude Fable 5.1 1,000,000, Gemini 4 Argon 1,048,576.
- Which has lower latency?
- Gemini 4 Argon (high) answers first: 48.5 s against 221.4 s to the first answer token, as Artificial Analysis measures it. Reasoning effort drives most of this: a higher setting thinks longer before it answers.
- Which is faster, Claude Fable 5.1 or Gemini 4 Argon?
- Gemini 4 Argon streams faster: 83 against 69 output tokens per second.
- Do independent benchmarks agree on Claude Fable 5.1 vs Gemini 4 Argon?
- Across the 39 benchmarks both have, Claude Fable 5.1 leads 18, Gemini 4 Argon leads 20 and 1 is a tie. Independent sources split: Claude Fable 5.1 leads on AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2; Gemini 4 Argon leads on Arena Text.
- When was Gemini 4 Argon released?
- Gemini 4 Argon became generally available on 13 Oct 2026, after first appearing on 30 Sept 2026.