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Can the Apple M4 Max (36GB) run Gemma 3 12B?

Apple M4 Max (36GB) × Gemma 3 12B8K context
YesRuns fully on the GPU
Memory at Q8_014.4 GB of 24.1 GB
Weights 13 GBKV cache 0.9 GBRuntime 0.6 GB
QuantQ8_0Near-lossless
Speed~19tokens per second
Max context128Kthe model's full window
  1. FP16
  2. Q8_0
  3. Q6_K
  4. Q5_K_M
  5. Q4_K_M
  6. Q3_K_M
  7. Q2_K

Yes. The Apple M4 Max (36GB) can run Gemma 3 12B fully in unified memory at Q8_0 (near-lossless), using about 14.4 GB of the 24.1 GB available, at roughly 19 tokens/second.

Try other context lengths

Run it with Ollama

With Ollama installed, one command downloads and starts Gemma 3 12B:

ollama run gemma3:12b

Ollama's default download is Q4_K_M (about 8.9 GB here). You have room for Q8_0, which is near-lossless: pick that GGUF in LM Studio or from Hugging Face.

New to this? Step-by-step setup for the Apple M4 Max (36GB)

Run it in the cloud

No Apple M4 Max (36GB)? Run Gemma 3 12B in the cloud.

Rent a cloud GPU by the hour. No upfront cost, stop any time.

Rent a GPU on RunPodRent a GPU on Vast.ai

Memory needed by quantization

At 8,192 tokens of context. The black line marks the 24.1 GB the Apple M4 Max (36GB) can use. macOS lets the GPU use about 24.1 GB of the 36 GB unified memory by default.

QuantQualityMemoryFits?Speed
FP16Full quality25.9 GBToo big—
Q8_0Near-lossless14.4 GBFits~19 tok/s
Q6_KExcellent11.5 GBFits~25 tok/s
Q5_K_MVery good10.1 GBFits~28 tok/s
Q4_K_MGood, most popular8.9 GBFits~33 tok/s
Q3_K_MNoticeably degraded7.4 GBFits~41 tok/s
Q2_KHeavily degraded6 GBFits~54 tok/s

Measured speed from real Apple M4 Max (36GB) owners

Tokens per second that people measured on their own Apple M4 Max (36GB), next to our estimate.

No one has measured Gemma 3 12B on the Apple M4 Max (36GB) yet. The speeds above are estimates. Run the benchmark and yours becomes the first real number on this page.

Have an Apple M4 Max (36GB)? Add your real speed

One command times Gemma 3 12B in your own Ollama, shows you exactly what it would send, and asks before sending anything. No sign-up, no personal data.

macOS and Linux

curl -fsSL https://gpufit.dev/bench.sh | sh -s -- gemma3:12b

Windows (PowerShell)

$env:GPUFIT_MODEL="gemma3:12b"; irm https://gpufit.dev/bench.ps1 | iex

How the benchmark works

GPUs that run Gemma 3 12B comfortably

Models that run well on the Apple M4 Max (36GB)

Frequently asked questions

Can Apple M4 Max (36GB) run Gemma 3 12B?

Yes. The Apple M4 Max (36GB) can run Gemma 3 12B fully in unified memory at Q8_0 (near-lossless), using about 14.4 GB of the 24.1 GB available, at roughly 19 tokens/second.

How much VRAM does Gemma 3 12B need?

About 8.9 GB at Q4_K_M with 8,192 tokens of context, and about 25.9 GB at full FP16 precision.

How fast is Gemma 3 12B on the Apple M4 Max (36GB)?

Roughly 19 tokens per second at Q8_0, estimated from the Apple M4 Max (36GB)'s 410 GB/s memory bandwidth.