Fable 5.1 leads the benchmarks, Opus 5 is the value pick, GPT-5.6 Sol is the most token-efficient. Here is how to choose between the three for real work.
Key takeaways
- Fable 5.1, released in September 2026, leads all seven of its published benchmarks, making it the most capable of the three, and the most expensive at $10 per million input and $50 per million output.
- Opus 5 lists at $5 and $25 per million, exactly half of Fable, and matches or beats Fable on most coding benchmarks, which makes it the value pick and the default on Claude Max.
- GPT-5.6 Sol prices close to Opus 5 and is the most token-efficient of the three, finishing tasks with fewer output tokens and less time.
- Fable 5.1 also cut cache reads 75% to $0.25 per million, which Anthropic estimates makes typical workloads about 25% cheaper and highly agentic ones up to about 45% cheaper.
- Van Data Team's recommendation: start from Opus 5 for value, reach for Fable 5.1 on the hardest tasks, weigh GPT-5.6 Sol on token efficiency, and measure on your own workload before committing.
📖 Read the full guide on Van Data Team → Fable 5.1 vs Opus 5 vs GPT-5.6: Which to Use
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