Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs Claude Fable 5.1
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) took 77 min 11 s and $1.20 at list price, Claude Fable 5.1 took 16 min 4 s and $3.97 at list price. Qwen3.8 Max (0902) took 4.8× as long, and Claude Fable 5.1 cost 3.3× as much.
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Alibaba · $6.00/M out · 3 HN pts
Claude Fable 5.1
Anthropic · $50.00/M out · 1,630 HN pts
Only Claude Fable 5.1 has CLI runs here (Claude Code).
Pelican
Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle
Watch
Draw a mechanical wristwatch that shows the current local time, with a sweeping seconds hand and a date window. Make it look expensive.
Landing
Build the landing page for Lumen Cycles, a Copenhagen workshop that builds custom cargo bikes to order. Make it look like a real brand you would trust with 4,000 euros.
Breakout
Make a Breakout game I can play right now with the keyboard or the mouse. Give it several levels, a score and some juice.
Logo
Design a logo for Night Heron, an independent bookshop that only opens after dark.
About
Write the opening of the About us page for Patchbay, a three-person studio in Rotterdam that repairs vintage synthesizers. About 150 words.
Patchbay is a small repair studio in Rotterdam dedicated to vintage synthesizers. We are three people who care about old instruments, their history, and the players who keep them alive. From classic analog polys to rare drum machines, we take the time to understand each machine before we touch it. Our work is practical and respectful: careful diagnosis, honest advice, and repairs that preserve the character of the instrument. We know these synths are more than circuits and knobs. They carry stories from studios, stages, and secondhand shops, and they deserve to be treated with patience. Whether a machine needs a simple clean, a full restoration, or help finding a hard-to-source part, we aim to make the process clear and personal from start to finish. Based in Rotterdam, we help musicians, collectors, and studios keep old synthesizers making sound for years to come. We do it with patience and respect.
Patchbay is three people and one workshop in Rotterdam, and we spend our days bringing old synthesizers back to life. Most of what arrives at our bench is somewhere between thirty and fifty years old: a Juno with a dead voice chip, a Minimoog that drifts out of tune the moment the room warms up, a Polysix whose battery has quietly eaten its own circuit board. We know these instruments inside and out because we have had hundreds of them open on the table.
We started Patchbay because we kept meeting musicians who had been told their synth was not worth fixing. We disagree. These machines were built to be serviced, and with the right parts, enough patience, and a good set of schematics, almost any of them can be made to play again. When we hand an instrument back, we want it to sound the way it did the day it left the factory, or better.
Specs and numbers
| Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Claude Fable 5.1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Alibaba | Anthropic |
| Made in | China | US |
| Released | 3 Sep 2026 | 1 Sep 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $2.00 | $10.00 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $6.00 | $50.00 |
| Context | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Weights | closed | closed |
| Hacker News points | 3 | 1,630 |
| Time for the six prompts | 77 min 11 s | 16 min 4 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $1.20 | $3.97 |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) was cheaper: $2.77 less at list price, and less on 5 of the 6 prompts. Claude Fable 5.1 was faster: 61 min 6 s less in total, and faster on each of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, Qwen3.8 Max (0902)'s Breakout game plays; Claude Fable 5.1's stopped painting.
Rebuild this screen experiment: Qwen3.8 Max (0902)'s rebuild matched the screenshot at 81%, Claude Fable 5.1's 78%. Tea Garden experiment: Qwen3.8 Max (0902)'s game passed 5 of 5 checks, Claude Fable 5.1's 5 of 5.





