Canonical Rankings

Best Macs for this model

Gemma 4 E2B ranked across the Mac lineup at the best practical quantization, using the best available runtime evidence. Model picker is focused on current-market choices.

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28 ranked MacsUse the strongest current runtime evidence for each row.13 historical models hiddenBaselinesStatic 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	697	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$7,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 250.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
2	Mac Pro M2 Ultra 192GB	633	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$6,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 186.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
3	Mac Studio M4 Max 128GB	569	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$4,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 122.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
4	MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB 16-inch	569	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$5,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 122.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
5	Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB	537	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$3,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 90.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
6	Mac Studio M4 Max 64GB	505	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$2,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 58.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
7	MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB 16-inch	505	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$4,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 58.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
8	Mac Mini M4 Pro 48GB	489	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$1,599	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 42.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
9	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB 14-inch	489	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$2,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 42.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
10	Mac Studio M4 Max 48GB	489	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$2,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 42.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
11	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB 16-inch	489	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$2,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 42.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
12	MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 14-inch	489	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$3,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 42.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
13	MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 16-inch	489	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$3,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 42.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
14	Mac Studio M4 Max 36GB	477	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$1,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 30.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
15	MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 14-inch	477	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$2,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 30.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
16	MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 16-inch	477	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$3,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 30.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
17	Mac Mini M4 32GB	473	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$799	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 26.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
18	MacBook Air M4 32GB 13-inch	473	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$1,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 26.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
19	MacBook Air M4 32GB 15-inch	473	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$1,699	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 26.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
20	Mac Mini M4 24GB	465	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$599	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 18.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
21	MacBook Air M4 24GB 13-inch	465	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$1,299	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 18.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
22	Mac Mini M4 Pro 24GB	465	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$1,399	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 18.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
23	MacBook Air M4 24GB 15-inch	465	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$1,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 18.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
24	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 14-inch	465	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$1,999	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 18.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
25	MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 16-inch	465	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$2,499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 18.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
26	Mac Mini M4 16GB	457	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$499	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 10.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
27	MacBook Air M4 16GB 13-inch	457	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$1,099	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 10.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
28	MacBook Air M4 16GB 15-inch	457	8bit	95.0 tok/s	Ollama	Fits	Estimated	$1,299	8bit is the current best practical quantization. 95.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 10.5 GB headroom remains at this quantization.

Gemma 4 E2B — 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

4Benchmark rows

4Chip tiers covered

158.0Fastest avg tok/s (M5 Max (128 GB))

—Minimum RAM observed

What this page answers best

Fastest published result is 158.0 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: 4 linked reference rows and no Silicon Score Lab rows yet.

Published runtimes here: MLX, Ollama.

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Catalog record

5.1BTotal params

DenseActive params

131,072Context 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 specs

Architecture: Dense.
Total parameters: 2.3B effective (5.1B with embeddings).
Context: 128K tokens.
Sliding window: 512 tokens.
Modalities: Text, Image, Audio.

Official takeaways

Reasoning: All models in the family are designed as highly capable reasoners, with configurable thinking modes.
Extended Multimodalities: Processes Text, Image with variable aspect ratio and resolution support (all models), Video, and Audio (featured natively on the E2B and E4B models).
Diverse & Efficient Architectures: Offers Dense and Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) variants of different sizes for scalable deployment.
Increased Context Window: The small models feature a 128K context window, while the medium models support 256K.

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

Field reality on Apple Silicon

4Benchmark rows

0Field reports

0Practitioner signals

Sparse BenchmarksEvidence status

What would improve confidence

Upgrade To First Party Measurement

Current published coverage

Published chip coverage includes M5 Max (128 GB), M4 Pro (24 GB), M3 (16 GB), M1 (8 GB). Fastest published row is 158.0 tok/s on M5 Max (128 GB) at Q4_K - Medium.

M5 Max (128 GB)M4 Pro (24 GB)M3 (16 GB)M1 (8 GB)

Related Gemma 4 E2B models with published pages: Gemma 4 E4B · Gemma 4 26B-A4B · Gemma 4 31B

Raw benchmark rows for Gemma 4 E2B

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	—	—	158.0 tok/s	—	MLX	ref
M4 Pro (24 GB)	Q4_K - Medium	—	—	95.0 tok/s	—	Ollama	ref
M3 (16 GB)	Q4_K - Medium	—	—	82.0 tok/s	—	Ollama	ref
M1 (8 GB)	Q4_K - Medium	—	—	58.0 tok/s	—	Ollama	ref

Chips with published results for Gemma 4 E2B

M5 Max (128 GB)M4 Pro (24 GB)M3 (16 GB)M1 (8 GB)

Data

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

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