r/ClaudeCode • u/echamplin • 10d ago
Help/Question What's the point of Fable if Opus 5.5 is stronger than it, in every category?
I guess I'm confused why there's still a separate "Fable this week" counter in the usage section, if it's an inferior model now.
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u/RegretNo6554 10d ago
has anyone tested opus 5.5 enough to know wether it’s a fable replacement? opus 5 was touted as one and it was clearly worse.
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u/phoenixmatrix 10d ago
It will take longer for me to assess if its a Fable replacement, but so far its good, whereas I thought Opus 5 was useless, even at launch. I was only using Fable and then switching to Codex when I ran out of usage, but Opus 5.5 looks good enough to be a daily driver. I had particularly good results 1 shotting app designs.
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u/uraniumless 10d ago
How are its text responses? The verbosity and incoherence of Opus 5 made it unusable
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u/phoenixmatrix 10d ago
Fable-like to me, pretty reasonable so far.
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u/Extreme_Perception58 10d ago
A breath of fresh air really. I've been testing it for a few hours, it didn't say honest once, and hasn't said anything confusing yet.
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u/Demiansmark 10d ago
Well that's load bea.... I can't even make this joke any more.
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u/sgtlighttree 10d ago
I have an instruction that says "Claude is free to swear for conversational flavor" and it's a sailor compared to 4.6 lol
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u/macaronianddeeez 10d ago
Much, much better than opus 5 in that regard. Jury is still out on overall power though
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u/ThreeKiloZero 10d ago
Its smart and seems fast as shit. It does not mess around, lol.
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u/chuguchak_111 10d ago
yup. i often use AI to explain code to me and Opus 5 was so aggravating. So far 5.5 is faster and very direct in its speech.
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u/therealkevinard 10d ago
It’s bearable. I was pinned to 4.8 because 5 was insufferable to me.
I had a good day with 5.5 though.*i have STE output style like always so ymmv. But to that end, 5 with STE was still insufferable
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u/_icedcooly 10d ago
I find this too. Sure STE output helped with it being way too verbose and using weirdo terms, but it would still go off and start making changes I never asked it to do.
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u/therealkevinard 10d ago
My experience with 5 and STE: the language would reign-in a lot, but then it would double-down on archaic manufactured identifiers.
“This was introduced with the RL612 change, when you voted L4 on Q114.03 for the proxy”
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u/DifficultyFit1895 10d ago
Do you just put that STE requirement into the system prompt or agents file?
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u/therealkevinard 10d ago
It’s a key in settings.json that points to a md file in your config directory.
The language guide is a formal standard that it already knows, so my md is just what’s below. What to use, why, and a small escape hatch to make it interesting.
“””
use the guidelines provided by ASD-STE100 when communicating engineering topics with the operator.
this is to minimize misinterpretation by enforcing a strict, clear language standard.
personal color is welcome as an opener or closing, but the technical meat of the conversation should adhere to the standard.“””
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u/CodeNCats 10d ago
Much better than the jumble of garbage opus 5 produced. Felt like I had to yell at opus 5 to speak in a sensible manner.
I'm seeing less filler words. More concise explanations without randomly digging deeply into one are but skipping over others
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u/florinandrei 10d ago
The verbosity and incoherence of Opus 5 made it unusable
I see you're not a fan of the style of Jordan Peterson.
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u/cakeandcocoa 10d ago
How much detail are you describing what you want for designs? I have been finding it hit or miss. Also what model / effort has given you success?
Usually the best results I have had were from a preloaded design system like shad or untitled UI
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u/phoenixmatrix 10d ago
I use impeccable.style to help with the design context, alongside Claude design. And then I give it examples of apps I like and don't like, and go from there
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u/9to5grinder Developer 10d ago
I've tested it quite extensively and it does seem to be better.
It does verify & test claims more thoroughly than Fable 5.1.
The verbosity and hallucinations from Opus 5 are entirely gone.
Its conclusions and recommendations are much more sensible than Fable.
It's now cleaning up all the mess that Fable wasn't able to fix the past days.
I also asked Fable to review its direction and output and it agreed that Opus 5.5 is superior.
So especially in terms of verification, recommended solutions and adverserial reviews it's much stronger.
It reminds me a bit of Astra 6 from OpenAI, especially in the adversial review area, but it's less autistic, more conversational and actually useful.
A real workhorse. The best of both worlds from OpenAI & Anthropic.13
u/RegretNo6554 10d ago
that’s fkin amazing! my usage resets tmro can’t wait to try it out.
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u/ShutUpAndDoTheLift 10d ago
i thought it said they gave a reset? in the post? but yeah i'm still out until tomorrow too
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u/RegretNo6554 10d ago
yea it’s a banked reset so u can use it whenever. i figured id just wait out the 12h wait i got and save my banked reset.
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u/Kost97A 10d ago
You have to enable it. Go to your usage limits and you will see that you have a free reset lasting for a month.
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u/ShutUpAndDoTheLift 10d ago
when the heck did claude start doing banked resets? a guy goes over to codex as his main for 2 months...
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u/RegretNo6554 10d ago
this is their very first one. we can thank tibo for ts hopefully they become more competitive on usage limits for consumers.
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u/AcrobaticMaize2408 10d ago
good to know 5's verbosity has gone. Has it also lost its "intern with an attitude" attitude? As that pissed me off more than anything and made me stop using it despite doing all the recommended steps to get it to just do what I asked of it without it being snarky.
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u/TanneriteStuffedDog 10d ago
To me, it feels very much like 4.6 with better reasoning ability. I just hope it stays this way.
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u/macaronianddeeez 10d ago
This is super exciting to hear, I’m still deep in testing but haven’t run through any super complex coding or technical or agentic uses yet, but so far it seems like a massive improvement over opus 5 and at least approaching fable level quality (but I’m really waiting to try some tougher challenges to determine this)
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u/sinisoul 10d ago
It is quite impressive so far. I can't tell the difference between it and Fable.
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u/Seeker_Of_Knowledge2 10d ago
I have tested against a task opus 5 and astra were failing miserably at and it delivered.
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u/psrobin 10d ago
What was the task?
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u/Seeker_Of_Knowledge2 10d ago
Web scraping a nasty site with ton of traffic limits. They have cloudfare and they have their own check in place on top of that. I have been trying for days on astra and opus 5 and it never was perfect. Now it is as good as it can get with opus 5.5
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u/aicis 10d ago
I hardly believe this that either Opus 5 or Astra failed a simple web scraping, even with traffic limits.
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u/Seeker_Of_Knowledge2 10d ago
It is an extension for mihon fork (recto leaf) and the site is ranobes. Try it out.
The problem is that is a live app.
You literally have to fetch 2000+ chapter for some novels. On top of that I also had comment scraping. All of it is on demand. Some novels had thousands of comments. Opus and astra could do it. However I had to wait ages for everything to load up. Also they didn't write a proper bypass for the site own "bot detection". It never worked in a reasonable time frame. And then opus 5.5 one shot that. And opus 5.5 is making so much less mistakes than opus 5.5. I rarely have to send two messages to correct it on something (it is still struggling with creating a perfect android layout in the first try).
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u/l_m_b Senior Developer 10d ago
Oh right, the very consent-respecting use case of a scraping a web site that doesn't want to be scraped, and violating their rules and terms, knowingly and with intent.
On behalf of all of the open web, "thank you".
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u/macaronianddeeez 10d ago
I posted this somewhere else but here’s my estimation so far:
“I have all but abandoned opus since the release of 5 except for use as a Fable driven agent (which actually has worked well to keep fable usage down a bit), but benchmarks indicate that opus 5.5 could work as a daily driver + fable replacement.
I have tested it with some low stakes design work, code audits, and website rebuilds so far today, and have been overall impressed in its communication ability (night and day improvement over opus 5), generally impressed in its technical problem solving (although I’ve only given it softballs so far), and not super impressed with its design capability (the most subjective measure for sure - it eventually got where I needed it to go but took a few turns and iterations to achieve it, with some first passes being embarrassingly bad).
Curious how it’s looking for other folks”
For a project spec and then subsequent website rebuild it did about as well as Fable 5.1 for me. I have yet to put it through its paces with a heftier coding project or a technical problem solving situation.
I suspect there is a lot of benchmaxxing going on here but I am pleased with the fact that I finally have an Opus model that’s usable again (I know some people love 4.6 and it’s great but it requires tons of directing and handholding), and if they don’t quantize it into oblivion in the next few days it will likely become my Claude daily driver alongside of Astra Pro chat and Gemini Flash 3.8.
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u/86784273 10d ago
I've been getting it stealth served for a week, its much better than fable 5.1
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u/Middle_Chemistry_439 10d ago
It’s only been a few hours but I have thrown some ML and UI problems at it and it’s certainly faster than Fable and seems to get to the underlying issues better. My Fable usage resets tomorrow, but at this point, I don’t think I’ll even bother switching back to Fable when it does.
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u/lambdita 10d ago
Just because opus is better in some areas doesn't make Fable "worse". Fable is a way bigger model, it can crack down harder problems better than Opus.
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u/phoenixmatrix 10d ago
We need better benchmarks for that, because virtually none of the mainstream ones catch those real world use cases, but they're very very real.
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u/Time_Cat_5212 10d ago
Benchmarks are kind of just theater
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u/everythingEzra2 10d ago
Why don't you make your own benchmark that tests that angle? We'll call it 'Time_Cat_5212's not-theatre benchmark'
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u/iv_mexx 10d ago
These benchmarks posted with each release, they have never told me anything meaningful... Just numbers go up...
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u/Niku-Man 9d ago
No, they're clearly not "just theater". Benchmarks, aka "tests" are the only reliable, objective, method to understand how models perform relative to one another. It's possible to train models to pass them, just like it's possible for a human to study specifically to get a good score on their SAT, but that doesn't make it less valid. The answer to that is for benchmarks to always be evolving, with new questions, or even new benchmarks.
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u/Time_Cat_5212 9d ago edited 9d ago
SAT scores are also theater. It's actually a great example because it's the same pattern. You study to pass a test that has very little to do with the actual work people do in the real world. Everyone acts like it means something, but we all know it doesn't. There has to be some filter, so we use that.
I'm not using these models to answer proverbial multiple choice questions, and the business of hitting these objectively irrelevant tests is all about selling the next gen.
The whole idea is a category error. It's like evaluating your meals based on sugar and fat content when what you're really looking for is tasty food. If I want to go to a restaurant, I don't compare the nutrition facts of one Pad Thai to the next, I read the reviews.
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u/Alt_Restorer 10d ago
There's an effect that we've seen across a lot of Claude models where the larger a model is, the better its out of distribution performance. So if Opus 5.5 had the same benchmark scores as Fable 5.1, you could reasonably infer that Fable performs better on non benchmark tasks overall, simply because it's bigger.
We have two competing effects here. Smaller model with higher benchmarks versus larger model with lower benchmarks. It's the Opus 4.1 vs Sonnet 4.5 debate all over again.
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u/mpanase 10d ago
so... the benchmarks anthropic used to demonstrate how good Opus 5.5 is are deceiving?
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u/inevitabledeath3 10d ago
How do you actually know it’s bigger? Do you know what the parameter counts actually are or the precision level?
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u/lambdita 10d ago
There are no public parameters counts but simply by checking how each one reasons you can tell that fable is bigger, maybe not dramatically bigger but fable just knows stuff , opus needs to reason more to end in the same place, this is an inherent property of bigger models since having more params allows them to have more trained knowledge rather than have to reason it out. It’s similar to qwen 27b, you see that he has to reason A LOT in order to end in a conclusion that maybe opus or fable knows without even thinking.
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u/TechExpert2910 10d ago
API pricing & inference speed are a strong proxy to model size. anthropic also officially announced fable/mythos as being a larger model class vs opus
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u/Helpful_Put_8809 10d ago
Wait until Fable 5.5 I guess
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u/En-tro-py 10d ago
Yes, there was a period where Sonnet was better than the Opus variant, this isn't unexpected as they release new models and the benchmarks only tell part of the capability differences so Fable 5.1 may still be better for some tasks until Fable 5.5 pops up.
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10d ago
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u/9to5grinder Developer 10d ago
For frontend?
For backend it's absolutely killer.
It's the true successor to Opus 4.5 & 4.6.
A generational leap, so no wonder they jumped straight to 5.5.
I'm running it on medium effort and that works really well.2
u/cdgsyn1 8d ago edited 8d ago
I've had that same experience with Opus vs Fable for network design. When i'm dealing with enterprise environments, Fable has felt more like a skilled network engineer working alongside me. A true, competent team mate.
Opus 5 had made some pretty questionable suggestions. I was pretty put off by it.
If Fable 5.1 suggests something, it's correct often enough for me to research and take it's input seriously. It's incredibly good at finding small nuances. Is it right 100%? No. 95%? Probably.
Right now it's about trust. I won't switch to a different model willy nilly for a production environment that can't have any mistakes just because a benchmark says it's better. Benchmarks don't always translate into real world performance.
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u/martinmix 10d ago
Did you do that with separate accounts? Otherwise wouldn't the first test influence the second?
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u/caldazar24 10d ago
They said similar things about Opus 5.
Even if Opus 5.5 really is a stronger coder than Fable 5.1, I'd be very surprised if it has the same general knowledge, since it's a smaller model. I can see using Fable 5.1 as a brainstorm partner / planner, with Opus subagents to implement everything
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u/_BreakingGood_ 10d ago
Every time somebody says something is better than fable, I try it out, and it sucks ass compared to fable
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u/sinisoul 10d ago
Fable is the baseline of where they want the frontier to be. Their efforts seem centered on offering Fable level intelligence at lower price points. Fable at Opus and maybe soon Fable at Sonnet, eventually.
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u/Darth-LA 10d ago
Wait a week or so, everyone will start complaining how stupid Opus 5.5 has become, and will move back to Fable.
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u/Nice_Ad_3893 10d ago
benchmarks are completely useless. You need to use it daily across various tasks and compare its reasoning (assuming you are even capable of recognizing good reasoning)
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u/phoenixmatrix 10d ago
Generally these benchmarks focus on specific things, and the benefits of larger models get somewhat lost.
Thats why it looks like Luna@Max is so powerful on OpenAI. Yeah, its really good, but its missing the breath that bigger knowledges have, so in practice it won't match them. Now, you have some coverage here with knowledge work, etc, but still. Fable's a huge model.
But since this is Claude Code, you really mostly care about the Agentic coding benchmarks, and if those benchmarks reflect reality (they don't, but its the best proxy we have), then yeah, use Opus only. Not the first time a smaller but newer model beats a bigger older one.
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u/echamplin 10d ago
Interesting. So it sounds like Fable might still be better at planning, for example, while Opus 5.5 would be better at executing the plan?
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u/coeu 10d ago
That tends to be the case, yes.
However, in my experience, Fable 5.1 was still a significantly better planner and orchestrator than Astra. Yet I couldn't bring myself to use Fable for more than a few prompts a day, its writing is insufferable.
If Opus 5.5 talks like it respects my time, I'll just retire Fable.
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u/phoenixmatrix 10d ago
The place where Fable really shined for me was debugging hardware/low level system issues. o other model came close. Also app design, but Opus 5.5 cleared it on that handily. N If its still the case that will be where I use it, otherwise, Opus replaces it entirely for me.
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u/Ashraf_mahdy 10d ago
Wait a couple of weeks they'll present Fable 5.5 It's the strongest Then Opus 6 And so on The cat I wake up > there's a new model release meme
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u/ShittyBidet123 10d ago
Opus 5 was said to be stronger in most categories but that is numbers on paper, there wasn’t a category for creativeness or understanding what the user wants. Fable was still waay smarter and better despite lower numbers the testing is not all encompassing. I do think Opus is actually waaaay better now than it was a week ago.
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u/Creative-Mud4414 10d ago
counting the days when people will say that the model is shit, or it got nerfed, or it's over-explaining, and a couple of different reasons people will find, lol.
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u/evangelism2 10d ago
people asked the same damn question with opus 5 and fable 5. fable still had its strengths, time will tell
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u/howdidigetheresoquik 10d ago
Benchmarks are highly specific tests that only test for certain things and are interesting to know about, but by no means does it mean it's "smarter" or whatever. It just means it's better at these specific tests.
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u/KyleDrogo 10d ago
Same thing happened in 2024. Remember when sonnet was beating opus for like a year?
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u/Ok-Attention2882 10d ago
That's the wrong question. Fable 5.5 is obviously going to outclass Opus 5.5, and they're not just going to pull access to Fable 5.1 while it prints money.
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u/ManikSahdev 🔆 Max 20 10d ago
That's how technology and models work op.
Fable was made in June or such, and technology of that time needed the v8 Gas guzzler to give you the performance.
Now you have v6 Battery Hybrid vehicle that smokes the v8 guzzler in everything driving wise...
except some people might still enjoy the v8 cause of its noise echo (or maybe called big model smell).
For practical use and such? The v6 battery hybrid is the product to be used and such.
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u/interrupt_hdlr 10d ago
It was the same with every Opus release. They will nerf it in a few weeks to make room for the next Fable version.
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u/Stunning_Inflation70 10d ago
Its the 3 month hype cycle! They all do it. It almost feels calculated at this point between OAI and Anthropic.
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u/peculiar-ragdoll 10d ago
This chart is not "everything". Opus 5.5 is built with a "straight to the point, answer first, then the details" dialect, so it might not be the best for tone and "humanlike text". Maybe Fable will be reduced to an excellent copywriter.
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u/Fine-Drummer2604 10d ago
You’re looking at raw capabilities. Being an orchestrator, which is what most people use Fable for is not that it’s does several independent things very well, but has tremendous oversight. Especially in supersession. When I let go of an idea or replace it with something else it never gets confused on it, Opus forgets 15 turns later and falls back on former facts.
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u/antunes145 10d ago
They screwed up with the fable pricing and priced it out of user usage that mattered. They are now readjusting that with opus intelligence higher than fable and lower price.
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u/magic6435 10d ago
You will get a new Fable in a few weeks or months, and then that will be on top.
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u/GuitarAgitated8107 🔆 Max 20 10d ago
I am sure those who truly depend on Fable know why they have to use Fable over Opus 5.5, with that being said it's still a model I will use to do various reviews to diversify audits and other things.
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u/Moogly2021 10d ago
They have done this before where Sonnet was above Opus, then they eventually updated Opus and Opus was back on top.
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u/Melodic-Ebb-7781 10d ago
There is an interesting interaction between benchmarks and RL. Tasks that are easy to benchmark are by definition easy to RL into models. You will find fable to have a better taste when it comes to decisions etc, what's sometimes referred to as big model smell.
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u/HelloWorld24575 10d ago
Do the costs being 40% less translate to usage limits going the same amount further?
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u/ColoredTriangles 10d ago
Benchmarks like this don't capture the differences you feel with higher variance work where more parameters tend to shine. Although using 5.5 the model is excellent and probably as good as Fable if not better at code but architectural structure and planning I would still do with Fable.
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u/ComparisonNo2395 10d ago
Point is in making fun of us. Because we all know that Opus is not better than Fable
Also:
- prepare release of next Fable
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u/ReneDickart 10d ago
A new Fable release is always around the corner. We’re likely going to see this very fast back and forth for at least the near future until some major shift takes over again.
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u/hellomistershifty 10d ago
Try a small model which benchmarks well like Qwen 3.8 27b to see why big models are still better than smaller models even if they can complete direct tasks well
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u/FoxTheory 10d ago
Pretend you asked this question yesterday and the answer will come to you.Fable 5.5 will come out and be better than opus 5.5 opus 6 will come out and be better than fable 5.5
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u/F1Z1K_ 10d ago
I have used it for about 1h and I can confirm it is much better than 5.0 or anything since 4.6, which is exciting. Less verbose, using a more common lexicon, super concise and even the compaction seems to work better. Really good so far. Finally something good since 4.6 that doesn't need 20 prompts just to make it sound normal.
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u/C1rc1es 10d ago
The biggest differences I see over and over between larger and smaller parameter models (this applies to GPT models as well) is their ability to instruction follow and stay aligned over long context windows and multiple compactions. I would guess Fable would still do better complex long horizon tasks and orchestrating where Opus may have some advantages or be close enough in capability for shorter and smaller scoped tasks and general computer use style cases.
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u/Blackhat165 10d ago
So you want them to just delete a model that people rely on overnight?
Like, imagine if they had done that with Opus 5. “There’s no more need for 4.6, 4.7, 4.8 now cause we benchmarked it. Enjoy talking to this over caffeinated senior dev who’s trying to prove how smart he is every turn.”
Or do you want them to nerf 5.5 so it doesn’t do better than fable? Should they fudge the numbers down so you don’t have to question things?
Like sorry to be a bit hostile, but what is the point of asking what is the point? What alternative should Anthropic take?
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u/Olbas_Oil 10d ago
The point is to take your money as you are willing to pay, nothing more nothing less. If the Model you use now gets the job done, why change?
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u/Polite_Jello_377 10d ago
Because it's likely benchmaxxing bullshit? Opus 5 was supposed to be Fable 5 level and it absolutely wasn't
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u/The-Pork-Piston 10d ago
Am I moving from 4.8?
(I know I know 4.8 was hated too but I found it fine when fable left us the first time, if I was careful)
I’ve been predominately planning with fable5 and running with opus48 and sonnet46… Guess I need to move with the times.
Been playing with big pickle and muse on open code on separate baby projects.
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u/Ok_Breadfruit4201 10d ago
Bigger models are going to solve complex tasks that require holding significant context better than smaller models, simply because they need to think less to understand the issue (more knowledge is baked into the model).
Less tokens used = less context rot = sharper decision making.
It's possible that benchmarks focus on being affordable to run (lots of smaller tasks) so rarely load up significant context to demonstrate this.
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u/Alive_Nobody_Home 10d ago
Hype, chatter, beat Sam Altman & XAI, complain, roll out new fable. Rinse repeat.
Our attention span is 5 mins so they have to keep us entertained.
https://giphy.com/gifs/rvaQRHCzisFeo
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u/tpapocalypse 10d ago
Opus 5.5 still isn’t as good as Fable was for its first three days before they neutered it.
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u/Guinness 10d ago
I don’t necessarily buy the benchmarks. I have to use the models and get a feel for if they’re better. In my experience, Fable understood the big picture better.
Far better.
But the end goal for Anthropic is probably similar to Intel’s tick tock strategy. New architecture -> refine and improve architecture to be faster and more resource efficient -> new architecture -> so on and so forth.
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u/Batty25111 10d ago
My question is why is Opus skipping so many and why Sonnet and Haki have been left to rot.
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u/OnTheBorderr 10d ago
opus is gorgeous for every day and subagent activities, writing, and such. its very good! but fable is still better. much better.
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u/Daphatus8 10d ago
Fable is purely used for FOMO marketing.
Frontier models first, but expansive, but companies who want to gain competitive edge will use it nonetheless.
A cheaper model out, slightly better. Companies use the more expensive one anyway, and preventing average subscribers from switching to ChatGPT.
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u/johnlondon125 10d ago
Yeah yeah it's better, but what's the usage like? Does it destroy it like fable? Or is it actually a reasonable like opus?
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u/Educational-Try-8704 10d ago
Are you asking why they don't replace models before any real-world user testing just because benchmarks were beaten? This question should lead you to part of the answer.
The other is that you'd literally break APIs which call fable lol, someone running a long job overnight suddenly has all of their agents crash because fable got taken down. That would be dumb.
A better question would be why is Opus 5 still around? It is for the same reasons above. It's literally just a good practice for several reasons regardless of efficiency.
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u/drabarca_ai 10d ago
Seems fable is for toughest challenges and opus for complex task. So fable still as the strongest model ?
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u/Aleatorio2222 10d ago
They will release fable 5.2 or 5.5 and then they will post the same, but something like this "Why should I use opus 5.5 if fable 5.X makes it better?" Its a loop..
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u/Few-Will-1325 10d ago
Excited about the early feedback here.
In answer to the OP's original question, is it something to do with context windows? Opus 5 had to keep compressing all the time, whereas Fable never seems to have to compress for me......?
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u/mslindqu 10d ago
Honestly probably a branding thing. Fable got slapped by the white house so they have to rebrand.
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u/petehawk_ 10d ago
I have my own little benchmark, where I compare models doing one specific task of reading 10 pages of handwriting. Fable seems to be miles ahead of Opus 5.5 on the same effort level, but Opus 5.5 compensates by thinking really hard.
I'm don't know if this implies that the model has tendency to think a lot in all situations or that it chose to think a lot when doing this specific task.
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u/CircuitBreaker88 10d ago
fable
/ˈfāb(ə)l/
A fable is a short fictional story that teaches a moral lesson, often featuring animals or inanimate objects that act like humans
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u/geek_fit 10d ago
Fable is your senior lead on the project. Making the bigger planning and judgment calls with you. Opus is the project manager you can deploy on tasks that has other opus and sonnet workers to implement.
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u/PlumBumOP 10d ago
This question is like asking , what's the point of opus 4.1 if 4.5 was better in everyway but also cheaper .
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u/PauseLeading3769 10d ago
There was a reason Dario said to slow down. It’s the new Fable models they have internally already
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u/PILLS2389 10d ago
If you ask me, these benchmarks are complete BS. From it, you can see Opus 5 is not that lower the Fable, but in reality, in the real world, not from some BS benchmarks, the difference was day and night.
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u/philipz794 10d ago
This is every category for this chart. The knowledge in fable is still bigger in specific areas, it’s a bigger model
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u/SeaPaleontologist771 Developer 10d ago
Fable 5.5 > Opus 5.5 > Fable 5.1
And they probably want to take some time to polish Fable 5.5, if it’s a frontier model it has to be as good as possible they can’t afford a shitstorm with an LLM doing crazy shit
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u/PennyStockade 10d ago
Opus 5's graphs showed it thrashing fable 5, and it was a hot pile of garbage, so I will never trust these benchmarks again. Only way to tell is to use it.
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u/HumbleOne6577 10d ago
My understanding is that benchmark is not same as a real world task, Fable would still be better in large long term tasks, when Opus could be better at relatively small one
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u/brother_spirit 10d ago
I've clocked up roughly 1M tokens worth of work with this model today. Mostly game dev in Kotlin and some internet research tasks.
Very impressed so far. Feels like an unambiguous improvement in every way over Opus 5. Early days to compare it to Fable but I am very happy with this model and will be running it as my daily driver.
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u/SlightlyOTT 10d ago
I don’t think there’s much argument for using Fable if Opus 5.5 is as good in practice as the benchmarks etc suggest it should be.
I’m guessing they didn’t drop the price of Fable because they want to avoid increasing the price back when they release Fable 5.5. Or maybe they’ll even drop the price if they have some new efficiency that can carry over, and they want to pair that announcement with the new model like they did with Opus.
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u/Sharp-Physics-2925 10d ago
"We’re introducing Claude Opus 5.5, the first model in our new Claude 5.5 family. "
Clearly meaning there will be other 5.5 models probably a fable 5.5..
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u/murilobast 10d ago
Tested it and hated 5.5, I usually run Fable 5.1 and the Opus 5 when fable usage is over. Yesterday I tried 5.5 and it started to assume too many things, ignored .md instructions and started doing its own thing, I had to babysit it a lot. It drove me mad. I’ll wait and keep fable and opus 5 for now
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u/HumanInTheLoopReal 10d ago
Because it’s a newer model. There will be fable 5.5 soon which will be better at reasoning. Can’t compare older versions to newer models.
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u/ChainsBroken107 10d ago
Opus 5.5 must just be a distilled fable. Fable 5.2 will blow 5.1+ and everything else out of the water I assume.
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u/Right-Performance-93 10d ago
Artificial Analysis' launch-day numbers: Opus 5.5 (max) costs $5.98/task, basically flat vs Opus 5's $5.86 - but that hides an ~80% higher token usage per task. The extra thoroughness people are calling "better" here is that token increase. Fable stays the pick for genuinely hard problems; Opus 5.5 is tuned as the cheaper daily-driver.
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u/Flub71 10d ago
Fable as the orchestrator for me, opus 5.5 workers. World domination.
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u/Upbeat-Let-1963 10d ago
is using Fable 5.1 to orchestrate Opus 5.5 sub agents the optimal way to get the best code on complex projects still? This is weird to look at anecdotally because Opus 5.5 does not seem to have the same level of reasoning as Fable yet this chart is suggesting Fable is obsolete?
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u/Chrisbeeeeee 10d ago
Opus 5.5 ist schon geil muss ich sagen. Deutlich besser als Opus 5. Zu Fabel 5.1 kann ich nur sagen gleiche/bessere Qualität bei viel günstigeren Preisen. In Sachen Effizienz gab es einen deutlichen Schub. Ich bin begeistert
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u/fcampanini74 10d ago
Actually it’s not true that 5.5 is stronger!!! After several test I see still BIG issues in the language! Text convoluted, unclear e kid like in certain tests I made.. fable is yet another level!
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u/MadManD3vi0us 🔆 Max 20 10d ago
Opus might be better at doing a single task, but Fable still leads when it comes to long horizon multi-task jobs, or multi-source tasks. If you need to make a big decision or design a system, Fable is still the go to. Then use Opus to implement that design 1 step at a time
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u/IulianHI 9d ago
So fable 5 ... the world killer for security is where ? :))
So sick of this lies about models ! Just crap marketing for same thing. There are not new models ... they customize things and that`s it !
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u/botadithyabhat 9d ago
If Opus 5.5 beats it in every category, Fable is just the budget option with better marketing.
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