# Claude Fable 5 vs Granite 4.2 8B

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Claude Fable 5 and Granite 4.2 8B across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/claude-fable-vs-granite-4-2-8b
- Last updated: October 15, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 4
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.8

## Quick Verdict

Claude Fable 5 leads by point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence. Choose using the category evidence and your own workload tests.

## Summary

- Claude Fable 5 has the higher overall point estimate 81.27 to 33.4. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.
- The clearest category separation is in agentic, where the averages are 76 for Claude Fable 5 and 15.7 for Granite 4.2 8B.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench 2.1 in Agentic, with scores of 84.3% and 20.6%.
- Granite 4.2 8B is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.
- Claude Fable 5 also has the larger context window at 1M+.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Claude Fable 5 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Anthropic | IBM |
| Type | Proprietary | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 1M+ | 128K |
| Overall Score | 81.27 | 33.4 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 24 | 14 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $10.00 / $50.00 | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Directional only
- Claude Fable 5 public-lane score: 76 (Supported · #6/127)
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 15.7 (Estimated · #113/127)

| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5 | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 3.0 | 34.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 84.3% | 20.6% | Claude Fable 5 |
| OSWorld-Verified | 85% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 80.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ApprenticeBench | 34% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MazeBench | 11% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| τ³-bench results | Coming soon | 58.1% | Coming soon |
| BFCL v4 | Coming soon | 52.4% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Directional only
- Claude Fable 5 public-lane score: 71.2 (Supported · #7/150)
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 17.2 (Estimated · #125/150)

| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5 | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 95% | 47.7% | Claude Fable 5 |
| SWE-bench Pro | 80% | 19.1% | Claude Fable 5 |
| FrontierSWE v2 | 47.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierCode 1.1 Main | 53.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 84.3% | 20.6% | Claude Fable 5 |
| cursorBench31 | 70.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CursorBench 3.2 | 70.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| VulcanBench v3 | 89.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 89.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 95.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE Multilingual | Coming soon | 30.8% | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench v6 | Coming soon | 73.2% | Coming soon |
| SciCode | Coming soon | 36.1% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Fable 5 public-lane score: 84.3 (Unranked · 4 rankable rows)
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 56.8 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5 | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| ARC-AGI-1 | 98.50% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 89.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Fable 5 public-lane score: 66 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5 | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 38.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OfficeQA Pro | 57.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Claude Fable 5
- Claude Fable 5 public-lane score: 82.4 (Supported · #6/184)
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 30.6 (Supported · #154/184)

| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5 | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 93.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 91.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA | Coming soon | 64.1% | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro | Coming soon | 74.0% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Directional only
- Claude Fable 5 public-lane score: 77.1 (#60/146)
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 86.5 (#41/146)

| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5 | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | Coming soon | 79.3% | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Fable 5 public-lane score: 96 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5 | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) | 87.018% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4) | 90.200% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| AIME 2025 | Coming soon | 86.7% | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2025 | Coming soon | 78.3% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Claude Fable 5 or Granite 4.2 8B?

Claude Fable 5 has the higher overall point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.

### Where is the biggest gap between Claude Fable 5 and Granite 4.2 8B?

The widest category gap is in agentic, where the averages are 76 for Claude Fable 5 and 15.7 for Granite 4.2 8B.

### How many benchmarks does Claude Fable 5 cover on BenchLM?

Claude Fable 5 currently has 24 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Granite 4.2 8B cover on BenchLM?

Granite 4.2 8B currently has 14 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Claude Fable 5 vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-vs-claude-fable-5-1)
- [Granite 4.2 8B vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-granite-4-2-8b)
- [Claude Fable 5 vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/claude-fable-vs-granite-4-2-30b)
- [Granite 4.2 8B vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-granite-4-2-8b)

## Explore More

- [Claude Fable 5 profile](/models/claude-fable)
- [Granite 4.2 8B profile](/models/granite-4-2-8b)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)