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Can the NVIDIA RTX 5060 run Gemma 3 12B?

RTX 5060 × Gemma 3 12B8K context
Yes, with heavy quantizationFits only at a low-quality quant
Memory at Q3_K_M7.4 GB of 8 GB
Weights 6 GBKV cache 0.9 GBRuntime 0.6 GB
QuantQ3_K_MNoticeably degraded
Speed~45tokens per second
Max context15Ktokens that fit at Q3_K_M
  1. FP16
  2. Q8_0
  3. Q6_K
  4. Q5_K_M
  5. Q4_K_M
  6. Q3_K_M
  7. Q2_K

Only just. Gemma 3 12B fits on the NVIDIA RTX 5060 at Q3_K_M, which costs noticeable quality. Expect about 45 tokens/second. A card with more memory is a better experience.

Try other context lengths

Run it with Ollama

Ollama's default gemma3:12b download is Q4_K_M, which needs about 8.9 GB, more than the 8 GB available. Download the Q3_K_M GGUF instead (LM Studio lists quants per model), or try a smaller context length.

New to this? Step-by-step setup for the RTX 5060

Run it in the cloud

Want full quality? Run Gemma 3 12B on a bigger rented GPU.

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Memory needed by quantization

At 8,192 tokens of context. The black line marks the 8 GB the NVIDIA RTX 5060 can use.

QuantQualityMemoryFits?Speed
FP16Full quality25.9 GBToo big—
Q8_0Near-lossless14.4 GBToo big—
Q6_KExcellent11.5 GBToo big—
Q5_K_MVery good10.1 GBToo big—
Q4_K_MGood, most popular8.9 GBToo big—
Q3_K_MNoticeably degraded7.4 GBFits~45 tok/s
Q2_KHeavily degraded6 GBFits~59 tok/s

Measured speed from real RTX 5060 owners

Tokens per second that people measured on their own NVIDIA RTX 5060, next to our estimate.

No one has measured Gemma 3 12B on the NVIDIA RTX 5060 yet. The speeds above are estimates. Run the benchmark and yours becomes the first real number on this page.

Have an RTX 5060? 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

Check RTX 3080 10GB prices

Models that run well on the NVIDIA RTX 5060

Frequently asked questions

Can NVIDIA RTX 5060 run Gemma 3 12B?

Only just. Gemma 3 12B fits on the NVIDIA RTX 5060 at Q3_K_M, which costs noticeable quality. Expect about 45 tokens/second. A card with more memory is a better experience.

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 NVIDIA RTX 5060?

Roughly 45 tokens per second at Q3_K_M, estimated from the NVIDIA RTX 5060's 448 GB/s memory bandwidth.