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Can the Apple M4 (16GB) run Gemma 3 1B?

Apple M4 (16GB) × Gemma 3 1B8K context
YesRuns fully on the GPU
Memory at FP162.6 GB of 10.7 GB
Weights 2 GBKV cache 0 GBRuntime 0.6 GB
QuantFP16Full quality
Speed~36tokens per second
Max context32Kthe 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 (16GB) can run Gemma 3 1B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 2.6 GB of the 10.7 GB available, at roughly 36 tokens/second.

Try other context lengths

Run it with Ollama

With Ollama installed, one command downloads and starts Gemma 3 1B:

ollama run gemma3:1b

Ollama's default download is Q4_K_M (about 1.3 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 (16GB)

Run it in the cloud

No Apple M4 (16GB)? Run Gemma 3 1B 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 10.7 GB the Apple M4 (16GB) can use. macOS lets the GPU use about 10.7 GB of the 16 GB unified memory by default.

QuantQualityMemoryFits?Speed
FP16Full quality2.6 GBFits~36 tok/s
Q8_0Near-lossless1.7 GBFits~68 tok/s
Q6_KExcellent1.5 GBFits~88 tok/s
Q5_K_MVery good1.4 GBFits~101 tok/s
Q4_K_MGood, most popular1.3 GBFits~119 tok/s
Q3_K_MNoticeably degraded1.1 GBFits~147 tok/s
Q2_KHeavily degraded1 GBFits~192 tok/s

Measured speed from real Apple M4 (16GB) owners

Tokens per second that people measured on their own Apple M4 (16GB), next to our estimate.

No one has measured Gemma 3 1B on the Apple M4 (16GB) yet. The speeds above are estimates. Run the benchmark and yours becomes the first real number on this page.

Have an Apple M4 (16GB)? Add your real speed

One command times Gemma 3 1B 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 -- gemma3:1b

Windows (PowerShell)

$env:GPUFIT_MODEL="gemma3:1b"; irm https://gpufit.dev/bench.ps1 | iex

How the benchmark works

GPUs that run Gemma 3 1B comfortably

Models that run well on the Apple M4 (16GB)

Frequently asked questions

Can Apple M4 (16GB) run Gemma 3 1B?

Yes. The Apple M4 (16GB) can run Gemma 3 1B fully in unified memory at FP16 (full quality), using about 2.6 GB of the 10.7 GB available, at roughly 36 tokens/second.

How much VRAM does Gemma 3 1B need?

About 1.3 GB at Q4_K_M with 8,192 tokens of context, and about 2.6 GB at full FP16 precision.

How fast is Gemma 3 1B on the Apple M4 (16GB)?

Roughly 36 tokens per second at FP16, estimated from the Apple M4 (16GB)'s 120 GB/s memory bandwidth.