# Can I run Gemma 3 27B on Apple M4 (16GB)?

> **No, not enough memory.** Needs ~18.6 GB even at Q4_K_M, but only ~10.5 GB is usable.

Last validated: 2026-06-15.

## Memory math
- Gemma 3 27B: 27B; Q4_K_M weighs 16.55 GB on disk.
- At Q4_K_M with a 4k context it needs ~18.6 GB (weights + KV cache + ~0.8 GB runtime overhead, ±15% with context length).
- Apple M4 (16GB): 16 GB unified, ~10.5 GB usable for model weights.
- Headroom: ~-8.1 GB.

## How to run
Recommended quant: n/a. Best tool on macOS: LM Studio.

```sh
ollama run gemma3:27b
```

## Run Gemma 3 27B on other devices
- [Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 (24GB)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/gemma-3-27b/nvidia-rtx-4090-24gb)
- [Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 (24GB)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/gemma-3-27b/nvidia-rtx-3090-24gb)
- [AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX (24GB)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/gemma-3-27b/amd-rx-7900-xtx-24gb)
- [Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 (32GB)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/gemma-3-27b/nvidia-rtx-5090-32gb)
- [32GB RAM Laptop (CPU/iGPU only)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/gemma-3-27b/laptop-32gb)
- [Apple M5 (32GB)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/gemma-3-27b/apple-m5-32gb)

## Other models that run on Apple M4 (16GB)
- [Qwen2.5 Coder 14B (14B)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/qwen2.5-coder-14b/apple-m4-16gb)
- [Mistral Nemo 12B (12.2B)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/mistral-nemo-12b/apple-m4-16gb)
- [Gemma 3 12B (12B)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/gemma-3-12b/apple-m4-16gb)
- [Llama 3.2 Vision 11B (10.7B)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/llama-3.2-vision-11b/apple-m4-16gb)
- [Falcon3 10B (10B)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/falcon3-10b/apple-m4-16gb)
- [Gemma 2 9B (9B)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/gemma-2-9b/apple-m4-16gb)

Estimate, not a guarantee. Sources: https://ollama.com/library/gemma3, https://ollama.com/library/gemma3/tags, https://huggingface.co/bartowski/google_gemma-3-27b-it-GGUF, https://lmarena.ai/leaderboard.
More: https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/gemma-3-27b/apple-m4-16gb