Can Mac mini M4 32GB run gemma-4-12b-it?

Apple · 32 GB LPDDR5X · 120 GB/s bandwidth · Google · 11.95B · model ctx up to 256K

Yes — the Mac mini M4 32GB (32 GB LPDDR5X) can run gemma-4-12b-it. At Q4 with the default 8K context it needs ≈ 9.96 GB VRAM (weights 6.57 GB + KV cache 2.39 GB + 1 GB runtime overhead), which fits within 32 GB. Decode at Q4/8K: ≈ 6.4 tok/s (estimated, batch 1). FP16 (≈ 27.29 GB) also fits, at ≈ 1.8 tok/s (estimated). Estimates come from memory-bandwidth math; rows tagged measured override estimates. Relative ranking is more reliable than absolute tok/s. Methodology.

Fit & speed by quant and context

Quant	Context	VRAM needed	Fits?	tok/s (decode)
Q4	4K	8.77 GB	Yes	6.4 est.
Q4	8K default	9.96 GB	Yes	6.4 est.
Q4	32K	17.13 GB	Yes	6.4 est.
FP16	4K	26.09 GB	Yes	1.8 est.
FP16	8K default	27.29 GB	Yes	1.8 est.
FP16	32K	34.46 GB	No	4.3 est.

Fits = weights + KV(ctx) + 1 GB overhead ≤ 95% of VRAM. Measured anchors are context-agnostic; the fit verdict is recomputed per context. A missing tok/s means the model is far beyond this card (offload-only territory).

VRAM breakdown at 8K context

Quant	Weights	KV cache	Overhead	Total needed	Mac mini M4 32GB VRAM
Q4	6.57 GB	2.39 GB	1 GB	9.96 GB	32 GB
FP16	23.9 GB	2.39 GB	1 GB	27.29 GB	32 GB

Other GPUs that run gemma-4-12b-it

• B200 192GB SXM — ≈426.0 tok/s Q4 est.
• MI300X 192GB — ≈282.2 tok/s Q4 est.
• H200 141GB SXM5 — ≈255.6 tok/s Q4 est.
• H100 80GB SXM5 — ≈178.4 tok/s Q4 est.
• Gaudi 3 128GB — ≈174.5 tok/s Q4 est.
• A100 80GB SXM4 — ≈108.6 tok/s Q4 est.
• RTX 5090 32GB — ≈95.4 tok/s Q4 est.
• RTX 4090 24GB — ≈53.7 tok/s Q4 est.

All GPUs for gemma-4-12b-it →

Other models for the Mac mini M4 32GB

• MiniCPM5-1B — ≈70.7 tok/s Q4 est.
• Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct — ≈41.3 tok/s Q4 measured
• Qwen3.5-2B — ≈38.2 tok/s Q4 est.
• GLM-4.7-Flash — ≈25.5 tok/s Q4 est.
• Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 — ≈25.5 tok/s Q4 est.
• Qwen3.5-35B-A3B — ≈25.5 tok/s Q4 est.
• Qwen3.6-35B-A3B — ≈25.5 tok/s Q4 est.
• Nemotron-3-Nano-Omni-30B-A3B-Reasoning-BF16 — ≈25.5 tok/s Q4 est.

All models on the Mac mini M4 32GB →