Canonical Rankings

Best Macs for this model

Gemma 4 31B ranked across the Mac lineup at the best practical quantization, using the best available runtime evidence.

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28 ranked MacsUse the strongest current runtime evidence for each row.Static paths cover only canonical model pages; sort and quantization stay as query state.

Rank	Mac	Score	Quant	Tok/s	Runtime	Fits	Evidence	Price	Why it ranks here
1	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB	357	8bit	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$7,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 219.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
2	Mac Pro M2 Ultra 192GB	293	8bit	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$6,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 155.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
3	Mac Studio M4 Max 128GB	229	8bit	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$4,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 91.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
4	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB 16-inch	229	8bit	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$5,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 91.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
5	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB	197	8bit	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$3,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 59.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
6	Mac Studio M4 Max 64GB	165	8bit	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$2,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 27.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
7	MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB 16-inch	165	8bit	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$4,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 27.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
8	Mac Mini M4 Pro 48GB	149	8bit	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$1,599	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 11.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
9	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB 14-inch	149	8bit	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$2,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 11.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
10	Mac Studio M4 Max 48GB	149	8bit	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$2,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 11.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
11	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB 16-inch	149	8bit	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$2,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 11.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
12	MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 14-inch	149	8bit	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$3,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 11.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
13	MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 16-inch	149	8bit	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$3,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 11.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
14	Mac Studio M4 Max 36GB	139	6bit	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$1,999	6bit is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 6.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
15	MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 14-inch	139	6bit	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$2,999	6bit is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 6.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
16	MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 16-inch	139	6bit	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$3,499	6bit is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 6.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
17	Mac Mini M4 32GB	132	Q5	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$799	Q5 is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 6.1 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
18	MacBook Air M4 32GB 13-inch	132	Q5	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$1,499	Q5 is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 6.1 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
19	MacBook Air M4 32GB 15-inch	132	Q5	18.0 tok/s	MLX	Fits	Estimated	$1,699	Q5 is the current best practical quantization. 18.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 6.1 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
20	Mac Mini M4 24GB	87	Q2_K	14.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$599	Q2_K is the current best practical quantization. 14.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 6.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
21	MacBook Air M4 24GB 13-inch	87	Q2_K	14.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$1,299	Q2_K is the current best practical quantization. 14.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 6.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
22	Mac Mini M4 Pro 24GB	87	Q2_K	14.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$1,399	Q2_K is the current best practical quantization. 14.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 6.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
23	MacBook Air M4 24GB 15-inch	87	Q2_K	14.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$1,499	Q2_K is the current best practical quantization. 14.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 6.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
24	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 14-inch	87	Q2_K	14.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$1,999	Q2_K is the current best practical quantization. 14.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 6.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
25	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 16-inch	87	Q2_K	14.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$2,499	Q2_K is the current best practical quantization. 14.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 6.6 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
26	Mac Mini M4 16GB	0	F32	—	MLX	No	Estimated	$499	Gemma 4 31B does not fit on Mac Mini M4 16GB at the current practical quantization.
27	MacBook Air M4 16GB 13-inch	0	F32	—	MLX	No	Estimated	$1,099	Gemma 4 31B does not fit on MacBook Air M4 16GB 13-inch at the current practical quantization.
28	MacBook Air M4 16GB 15-inch	0	F32	—	MLX	No	Estimated	$1,299	Gemma 4 31B does not fit on MacBook Air M4 16GB 15-inch at the current practical quantization.

Gemma 4 31B — ranking first, raw rows below

Start with the ranked Mac table above. Use the rest of this page to inspect raw Apple Silicon coverage and model metadata.

Quantizations observed: Q4_K - Medium

3Benchmark rows

3Chip tiers covered

26.0Fastest avg tok/s (M5 Max (128 GB))

—Minimum RAM observed

What this page answers best

Fastest published result is 26.0 tok/s on M5 Max (128 GB) at Q4_K - Medium. Published runtimes include MLX, Ollama. Start with Rankings for the decision, then use the raw rows below to audit the evidence.

Evidence state: 3 linked reference rows and no Silicon Score Lab rows yet.

Published runtimes here: MLX, Ollama.

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Catalog record

30.7BTotal params

DenseActive params

262,144Context window

2026-04-02Release date

What this model is, and what Apple Silicon users are actually seeing

Official model cards tell you what the model is for and which software stacks it targets. Field reality below shows how much Apple Silicon evidence we have so far.

Official brief

Gemma is a family of open models built by Google DeepMind. Gemma 4 models are multimodal, handling text and image input (with audio supported on small models) and generating text output. This release includes open-weights models in both pre-trained and instruction-tuned variants.

Official source · Raw model card

agentscodingreasoningvisual-understanding

Runtime support mentioned

llama.cppTransformers

Official takeaways

No Thinking Content in History: In multi-turn conversations, the historical model output should only include the final response. Thoughts from previous model turns must not be added before the next user turn begins.
Web Documents: A diverse collection of web text ensures the model is exposed to a broad range of linguistic styles, topics, and vocabulary. The training dataset includes content in over 140 languages.
Code: Exposing the model to code helps it to learn the syntax and patterns of programming languages, which improves its ability to generate code and understand code-related questions.
Mathematics: Training on mathematical text helps the model learn logical reasoning, symbolic representation, and to address mathematical queries.

Official model cards describe intent, capabilities, and supported stacks. They do not prove Apple Silicon speed by themselves.

Field reality on Apple Silicon

Gemma 4 31B: 2 Apple Silicon field reports; best reported generation ~18 tok/s; best reported prompt processing ~161.5 tok/s; seen on MacBook Pro M4 MAX 36GB; via oMLX.

3Benchmark rows

2Field reports

1Practitioner signals

Sparse BenchmarksEvidence status

What practitioners keep saying

The oMLX page reports Gemma 4 31B 4bit on an M4 Max 36GB MacBook Pro at 4096 tokens context with 161.5 tok/s prompt processing and 12.5 tok/s generation.
The same report shows generation dropping from 18.0 tok/s at 1024 tokens context to 7.8 tok/s at 8192 tokens context, which keeps Gemma 4 31B in the watchlist but flags long-context cost.

Runtime mentions in the field

oMLX

Hardware mentioned in reports

M4MacBookMacBook Pro

What would improve confidence

Capture Practitioner Runtime Notes
Queue Lab Verification If Hardware Available
Reproduce Field Performance Signal
Upgrade To First Party Measurement

Current published coverage

Published chip coverage includes M5 Max (128 GB), M4 Max (48 GB), M4 Pro (24 GB). Fastest published row is 26.0 tok/s on M5 Max (128 GB) at Q4_K - Medium.

M5 Max (128 GB)M4 Max (48 GB)M4 Pro (24 GB)

Related Gemma 4 models with published pages: Gemma 4 26B-A4B

Raw benchmark rows for Gemma 4 31B

Rows stay below the ranking because this page is answer-first. Use them to inspect exact chips, quantizations, runtimes, and sources.

Chip	Quant	RAM req.	Context	Avg tok/s	Prompt tok/s	Runtime	Source
M5 Max (128 GB)	Q4_K - Medium	—	—	26.0 tok/s	—	MLX	ref
M4 Max (48 GB)	Q4_K - Medium	—	—	18.0 tok/s	—	MLX	ref
M4 Pro (24 GB)	Q4_K - Medium	—	—	14.0 tok/s	—	Ollama	ref

Chips with published results for Gemma 4 31B

M5 Max (128 GB)M4 Max (48 GB)M4 Pro (24 GB)

Data

benchmarks.json — full dataset · models.json — model summaries · benchmarks.csv — CSV export

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