Will it run? / Gemma 3 27B / Mac mini M6 (16GB)

Can the Mac mini M6 (16GB) run Gemma 3 27B?

Won't fit No. Gemma 3 27B needs about 18.5 GB of memory, and the Mac mini M6 (16GB) can give a model about 10.7 GB. You'd need a machine with more memory, or a smaller model.

–estimated tokens/sec
18.5 GBmemory needed
10.7 GBavailable to the model
170 GB/smemory bandwidth

Check the Mac mini M6 (16GB) price →

How we got this number

Each generated token reads the whole model from memory once: 17 GB. The Mac mini M6 (16GB) moves 170 GB/s, so the ceiling is 10 tokens/sec. Real machines reach a fraction of that ceiling; we use 80%, calibrated against a measured Mac run. Send us your real numbers and we'll replace the estimate.

Faster machines for Gemma 3 27B

Mac Studio M5 Ultra (96GB)58 tok/s$5,499Check price →
Mac Studio M5 Ultra (256GB)58 tok/s$9,499Check price →
Mac Studio M5 Max (40-core GPU, 64GB)29 tok/s$3,799Check price →
Mac mini M5 Pro (64GB)14 tok/sCheck price →

Other models on the Mac mini M6 (16GB)

lfm 2.5 8B (A1B)Fast111 tok/s
Qwen3.5 4BFast40 tok/s
Llama 2 7BFast36 tok/s
Code Llama 7BFast36 tok/s
DeepSeek Coder 6.7BFast36 tok/s
Llama 2 uncensored 7BFast36 tok/s