Gemma 3 12B needs ~13.4 GB VRAM. MacBook Pro M4 16GB has 11.5 GB. With Q3_K_S quantization, expect ~8 tok/s.
Operating mode
Interactive favors responsiveness, while light API and scale-out lean harder on serving readiness. The fit stays the same, but the recommendation lens changes.
Current mode
Balanced
Balanced for general local use. Keeps the ranking neutral across personal and serving workflows.
Select quantization to explore
3.3 GB over capacity — needs offload or smaller quantization
Fit status
Too heavy
Decode
5.8 tok/s
TTFT
33524 ms
Safe context
5K
Memory
14.8 GB / 11.5 GB
Offload
20%
It fits through host-memory offload, and offload is the main reason performance drops.
CPU or host-memory offload is active
About 10% of the working set spills out of accelerator memory, which usually hurts latency and sustained decode throughput.
Very little memory headroom
You can run the model, but there is not much room left for longer context, bigger batches, extra apps, or future model updates.
Shared-memory contention still exists
The OS, browser, and inference runtime all compete for the same physical memory pool, so real-world headroom is less forgiving than raw capacity suggests.
Remove offload with more accelerator memory
Prioritize a GPU or unified-memory tier that fits the whole model natively. Removing offload usually helps more than small compute gains.
Buy headroom, not only minimum fit
A slightly larger memory tier gives you safer context growth and makes the recommendation more future-proof.
Increase host RAM if you keep offloading
This setup may need roughly 0.8 GB of extra host RAM just for the offloaded portion, before OS and other tools.
| Workload | Grade | Fit | Decode | TTFT | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat | B | Runs with offload (needs ~0.5 GB host RAM) | 7.3 tok/s | 14508 ms | 5K |
| Coding | F | Too heavy | 5.8 tok/s | 33524 ms | 5K |
| Agentic Coding | F | Too heavy | 4.2 tok/s | 67520 ms | 5K |
| Reasoning | F | Too heavy | 5.8 tok/s | 39620 ms | 5K |
| RAG | F | Too heavy | 4.2 tok/s | 84400 ms | 5K |
How Gemma 3 12B (12B params) fits at each quantization level on MacBook Pro M4 16GB (11.5 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q2_K | 2 | 4.7 GB | Low | A82 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 5.9 GB | Low | A82 |
NVFP4 | 4 |
Copy-paste commands to run Gemma 3 12B on your machine.
Run
ollama run gemma3:12bUpgrade options
Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.
Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.
~$799 MSRP
Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.
Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.
~$1,099 MSRP
Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.
Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.
~$1,099 MSRP
RTX A4500 20GBBiggest leapMakes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.
Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.
~$2,000 MSRP
Yes, MacBook Pro M4 16GB can run Gemma 3 12B at Q3_K_S quantization (Very compromised (needs ~0.8 GB host RAM)). The recommended Q4_K_M requires 14.8 GB which exceeds available memory, but at Q3_K_S it needs only 13.4 GB. Expected decode speed: 7.6 tok/s.
Gemma 3 12B (12B parameters) requires approximately 14.8 GB at Q4_K_M quantization. On MacBook Pro M4 16GB, it fits at Q3_K_S using 13.4 GB.
The recommended quantization is Q4_K_M, but on MacBook Pro M4 16GB the best fitting quantization is Q3_K_S, which uses 13.4 GB.
On MacBook Pro M4 16GB, Gemma 3 12B achieves approximately 7.6 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 25516ms using Q3_K_S quantization.
For coding workloads, Gemma 3 12B on MacBook Pro M4 16GB receives a F grade with 5.8 tok/s and 5K context.
On MacBook Pro M4 16GB, Gemma 3 12B can safely use up to 10K tokens of context at Q3_K_S quantization. The model's official context limit is 131K, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.
Paste this snippet into any page to show a live fit card.
<iframe src="https://willitrunai.com/embed/gemma-3-12b-on-m4-16gb" width="400" height="180" frameborder="0" style="border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden;" title="Will It Run AI — fit result"></iframe>
Preview:
6.7 GB |
| Medium |
| A82 |
Q4_K_MBest for your GPU | 4 | 7.3 GB | Medium | A82 |
Q5_K_M | 5 | 8.6 GB | High | F0 |
Q6_K | 6 | 9.8 GB | High | F0 |
Q8_0 | 8 | 12.8 GB | Very High | F0 |
F16 | 16 | 24.6 GB | Maximum | F0 |
Remove offload with more accelerator memory. Prioritize a GPU or unified-memory tier that fits the whole model natively. Removing offload usually helps more than small compute gains.
Not always. MacBook Pro M4 16GB can often fit larger models thanks to unified memory, but a discrete GPU with dedicated high-bandwidth VRAM may still decode faster once the model fits. For this combination, the important distinction is capacity versus sustained throughput.