Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Claude Fable 5.1
Gemini 3.8 Flash took 8 min 33 s and $0.32 at list price, Claude Fable 5.1 took 16 min 4 s and $3.97 at list price. Claude Fable 5.1 took 1.9× as long and cost 12× as much.
Gemini 3.8 Flash
Google · $4.13/M out · 1,293 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.
Tucked away in Rotterdam, Patchbay is a three-person repair studio dedicated to the preservation and revival of vintage synthesizers. We believe that classic instruments are living machines rather than museum relics—tools built to inspire, create, and be played loud. Between the three of us, we combine decades of experience in electronics engineering, sound design, and meticulous craftsmanship. Whether tracking down elusive voice chips for an eighties polyphonic giant, rebuilding power supplies, or recalibrating the drift on a cantankerous monophonic circuit from the seventies, we treat every piece of gear with obsessive attention to detail. Our workbench is built on a deep respect for historical engineering and a refusal to cut corners. For musicians, producers, and collectors across the Netherlands and beyond, Patchbay is where forgotten circuits find their current again, keeping the tactile soul of analog synthesis alive and resonant.
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
| Gemini 3.8 Flash | Claude Fable 5.1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | |
| Made in | US | US |
| Released | 2 Sep 2026 | 1 Sep 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $0.825 | $10.00 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $4.13 | $50.00 |
| Context | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Weights | closed | closed |
| Hacker News points | 1,293 | 1,630 |
| Time for the six prompts | 8 min 33 s | 16 min 4 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $0.32 | $3.97 |
Gemini 3.8 Flash was cheaper: $3.65 less at list price, and less on each of the 6 prompts. Gemini 3.8 Flash was faster: 7 min 32 s less in total, and faster on 5 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, Gemini 3.8 Flash's Breakout game plays; Claude Fable 5.1's stopped painting.
Rebuild this screen experiment: Claude Fable 5.1's rebuild matched the screenshot at 78%; Gemini 3.8 Flash was not in it. Tea Garden experiment: Claude Fable 5.1's game passed 5 of 5 checks; Gemini 3.8 Flash was not in it.





