Will it run? / Gemma 4 12B / Mac mini M6 (16GB)

Can the Mac mini M6 (16GB) run Gemma 4 12B?

Comfortable Yes, at about 18 tokens/sec (estimated). That reads at a comfortable pace.

18estimated tokens/sec
9.1 GBmemory needed
10.7 GBavailable to the model
170 GB/smemory bandwidth
ollama run gemma4:12b

Check the Mac mini M6 (16GB) price →

How we got this number

Each generated token reads the whole model from memory once: 7.6 GB. The Mac mini M6 (16GB) moves 170 GB/s, so the ceiling is 22 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 4 12B

Mac Studio M5 Ultra (96GB)120+ tok/s$5,499Check price →
Mac Studio M5 Ultra (256GB)120+ tok/s$9,499Check price →
Mac Studio M5 Max (40-core GPU, 64GB)65 tok/s$3,799Check price →
Mac mini M5 Pro (24GB)32 tok/s$1,699Check price →

Other models on the Mac mini M6 (16GB)

lfm 2.5 8B (A1B)Fast111 tok/s
minicpm v4.6 1BFast85 tok/s
Gemma 2 2BFast85 tok/s
codeGemma 2BFast85 tok/s
Gemma 2BFast80 tok/s
smollm 2 1.7BFast76 tok/s