Can I run Gemma 4 26B (A4B) on a Mac?

Gemma 4 26B (A4B) needs about 20.5 GB of memory. It fits on 12 of the 15 machines we track. The cheapest current machine that runs it at a comfortable 10+ tokens/sec is the Mac mini M5 Pro (24GB) ($1,699).

How much memory does Gemma 4 26B (A4B) need?

About 20.5 GB: 19 GB for the 4-bit model plus room for context.

Can I run Gemma 4 26B (A4B) locally? Speed on every Mac & mini PC

Machine	Memory	Fits?	Tokens/sec	From
Mac Studio M5 Ultra (96GB)	96 GB	Yes	120+	$5,499	Check price →
Mac Studio M5 Ultra (256GB)	256 GB	Yes	120+	$9,499	Check price →
Mac Studio M5 Max (40-core GPU, 64GB)	64 GB	Yes	98	$3,799	Check price →
Mac mini M5 Pro (64GB)	64 GB	Yes	49		Check price →
Mac mini M4 Pro (64GB) older	64 GB	Yes	44		Check price →
NVIDIA DGX Spark (128GB)	128 GB	Yes	38		Check price →
Ryzen AI Max+ 395 mini PC (128GB)	128 GB	Yes	36		Check price →
Mac mini M5 Pro (24GB)	24 GB	Barely	29	$1,699	Check price →
Mac mini M6 (32GB)	32 GB	Yes	27		Check price →
Beelink SER7 (Ryzen 7 7840HS, 32GB)	32 GB	Yes	11		Check price →
Minisforum UM790 Pro (Ryzen 9 7940HS, 32GB)	32 GB	Yes	11		Check price →
GEEKOM A6 (Ryzen 7 6800H, 32GB)	32 GB	Yes	9.2		Check price →
Mac mini M6 (16GB)	16 GB	No	–	$899	Check price →
Mac mini M4 (16GB) older	16 GB	No	–		Check price →
Mac mini M2 (16GB) older	16 GB	No	–		Check price →

This is a mixture-of-experts model: it only reads part of itself for each token, so it runs much faster than its size suggests, but the whole file still has to fit in memory. Around 10 tokens/sec reads comfortably; under 5 feels slow. How we estimate.

Other gemma4 sizes

Gemma 4 E2B Gemma 4 E4B Gemma 4 12B Gemma 4 31B

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