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Can the Apple M4 Pro (48GB) run Gemma 4 12B?

Apple M4 Pro (48GB) × Gemma 4 12B8K context
YesRuns fully on the GPU
Memory at FP1624.9 GB of 36 GB
Weights 23.9 GBKV cache 0.4 GBRuntime 0.6 GB
QuantFP16Full quality
Speed~7tokens per second
Max context256Kthe 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 Pro (48GB) can run Gemma 4 12B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 24.9 GB of the 36 GB available, at roughly 7 tokens/second.

Try other context lengths

Run it with Ollama

With Ollama installed, one command downloads and starts Gemma 4 12B:

ollama run gemma4:12b

Ollama's default download is Q4_K_M (about 8.3 GB here). You have room for FP16, which is full quality: pick that GGUF in LM Studio or from Hugging Face.

New to this? Step-by-step setup for the Apple M4 Pro (48GB)

Run it in the cloud

No Apple M4 Pro (48GB)? Run Gemma 4 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 36 GB the Apple M4 Pro (48GB) can use. macOS lets the GPU use about 36 GB of the 48 GB unified memory by default.

QuantQualityMemoryFits?Speed
FP16Full quality24.9 GBFits~7 tok/s
Q8_0Near-lossless13.7 GBFits~13 tok/s
Q6_KExcellent10.8 GBFits~17 tok/s
Q5_K_MVery good9.5 GBFits~19 tok/s
Q4_K_MGood, most popular8.3 GBFits~23 tok/s
Q3_K_MNoticeably degraded6.8 GBFits~28 tok/s
Q2_KHeavily degraded5.5 GBFits~37 tok/s

Measured speed from real Apple M4 Pro (48GB) owners

Tokens per second that people measured on their own Apple M4 Pro (48GB), next to our estimate.

No one has measured Gemma 4 12B on the Apple M4 Pro (48GB) yet. The speeds above are estimates. Run the benchmark and yours becomes the first real number on this page.

Have an Apple M4 Pro (48GB)? Add your real speed

One command times Gemma 4 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 -- gemma4:12b

Windows (PowerShell)

$env:GPUFIT_MODEL="gemma4:12b"; irm https://gpufit.dev/bench.ps1 | iex

How the benchmark works

GPUs that run Gemma 4 12B comfortably

Models that run well on the Apple M4 Pro (48GB)

Frequently asked questions

Can Apple M4 Pro (48GB) run Gemma 4 12B?

Yes. The Apple M4 Pro (48GB) can run Gemma 4 12B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 24.9 GB of the 36 GB available, at roughly 7 tokens/second.

How much VRAM does Gemma 4 12B need?

About 8.3 GB at Q4_K_M with 8,192 tokens of context, and about 24.9 GB at full FP16 precision.

How fast is Gemma 4 12B on the Apple M4 Pro (48GB)?

Roughly 7 tokens per second at FP16, estimated from the Apple M4 Pro (48GB)'s 273 GB/s memory bandwidth.