Claude Fable 5 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B): Specs & Benchmark Comparison

Claude Fable 5 is developed by Anthropic, while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) comes from NVIDIA. Claude Fable 5 was released in June 2026, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) followed 2 months later in August 2026. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) has a published size of about 30 billion parameters; Anthropic has not disclosed the parameter count of Claude Fable 5.

The two models share 3 published benchmarks. Claude Fable 5 leads on 3 of them. The widest gaps are on Terminal-Bench 2.1, where Claude Fable 5 scores 84.3% against 24.6%; Humanity's Last Exam, where Claude Fable 5 scores 64.5% against 11.7%. Averaged across everything we track, Claude Fable 5 sits at 59.8% and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) at 45.3%.

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is the cheaper API at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens, roughly 200 times cheaper than Claude Fable 5 at $10 and $50. Claude Fable 5 takes the larger context window at 1M tokens, compared with 262K for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B). Claude Fable 5 accepts text and images as input, while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) accepts text.

CharacteristicClaude Fable 5Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)
CompanyAnthropicNVIDIA
Release DateJune 9, 2026August 11, 2026
Parameters30B
MultimodalYesNo
Context (input)1.0M262K
Context (output)128K262K
Input Price / 1M$10.00$0.05
Output Price / 1M$50.00$0.20
Average Score59.8%45.3%
Benchmarks
Terminal-Bench 2.184.3%24.6%
Humanity's Last Exam64.5%11.7%
SWE-Bench Verified95.0%51.6%

Visual Benchmark Comparison

Claude Fable 5
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)
Terminal-Bench 2.10.8 vs 0.2
0.8
0.2
Humanity's Last Exam0.6 vs 0.1
0.6
0.1
SWE-Bench Verified0.9 vs 0.5
0.9
0.5

Verdict

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) leads in 2 out of 5 comparison categories.

Overall Performance

Both models show comparable average scores: Claude Fable 5 — 0.6, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) — 0.5.

Programming

On SWE-Bench, both models are nearly equal: Claude Fable 5 — 0.9, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) — 0.5.

API Cost

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is 240.0x cheaper: input $0.05/1M vs $10.00/1M tokens.

Context Window

Claude Fable 5 supports a larger context: 1M vs 262K tokens.

Recency

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is newer: released 8/11/2026 vs 6/9/2026.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better for coding — Claude Fable 5 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?
On the SWE-Bench benchmark, Claude Fable 5 shows a better result: 95.0% vs 51.6%.
Which model is cheaper — Claude Fable 5 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is cheaper for input: $0.05 per 1M tokens vs $10.00.
Which has a larger context window — Claude Fable 5 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?
Claude Fable 5 supports a larger context: 1,000,000 tokens vs 262,100.

The Claude Fable 5 and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) comparison is updated for 2026. Data includes benchmark results, API pricing, context window size and other specifications. For more detailed information, visit the Claude Fable 5 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) page. See also the complete list of AI model comparisons.