> trade blows with Opus 4.8 if not Fable.

Okay I love the open models, but the hype is getting ridiculous. The models you can run on 4 X RTX6000 are not Fable level.

Baseline yeah. But part of the reason you run open models is how much nicer fine tuning them is. Granted, you probably don't want to try and make LoRAs on a 4x RTX6000 setup, but you could if you really wanted to and there are other ways to modify models. And yes, if you're good at it, you can turn a piddly mid-range model that's only good at benchmarks into a heavyweight clanker (for a specific domain).

Well, they are if you're into animating pelicans. :-P But yes, in the general case Opus is a better match.

And Opus is no slouch. I'm satisfied that GLM 5.3 is just as strong as Opus. Z.AI has promised/bragged that they will be at Fable 5.0 level by the end of the year or early next year, and I don't see any reason to doubt them.