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Canonical Rankings

Best Macs for this model

Gemma 4 E4B ranked across the Mac lineup at the best practical quantization, using the best available runtime evidence. Model picker is focused on current-market choices.

29 ranked MacsUse the strongest current runtime evidence for each row.28 historical models hiddenStatic paths cover only canonical model pages; sort and quantization stay as query state.
RankMacScoreQuantTok/sRuntimeFitsHeadroomContextEvidencePriceWhy it ranks here
1MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB 16-inch6978bit 128.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 128.0 tok/s · MLX · EstimatedMLXFits119.4 GB131kEstimated$5,3998bit is the current best practical quantization. 128.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 119.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
2Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB6258bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits247.4 GB131kEstimated$7,4998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 247.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
3Mac Pro M2 Ultra 192GB5618bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits183.4 GB131kEstimated$6,9998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 183.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
4Mac Studio M4 Max 128GB4978bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits119.4 GB131kEstimated$4,4998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 119.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
5MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB 16-inch4978bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits119.4 GB131kEstimated$5,9998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 119.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
6Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GB4658bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits87.4 GB131kEstimated$3,9998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 87.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
7Mac Studio M4 Max 64GB4338bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits55.4 GB131kEstimated$2,9998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 55.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
8MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB 16-inch4338bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits55.4 GB131kEstimated$4,4998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 55.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
9Mac Mini M4 Pro 48GB4178bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits39.4 GB131kEstimated$1,5998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 39.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
10MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB 14-inch4178bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits39.4 GB131kEstimated$2,4998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 39.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
11Mac Studio M4 Max 48GB4178bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits39.4 GB131kEstimated$2,4998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 39.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
12MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB 16-inch4178bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits39.4 GB131kEstimated$2,9998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 39.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
13MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 14-inch4178bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits39.4 GB131kEstimated$3,4998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 39.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
14MacBook Pro M4 Max 48GB 16-inch4178bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits39.4 GB131kEstimated$3,9998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 39.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
15Mac Studio M4 Max 36GB4058bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits27.4 GB131kEstimated$1,9998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 27.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
16MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 14-inch4058bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits27.4 GB131kEstimated$2,9998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 27.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
17MacBook Pro M4 Max 36GB 16-inch4058bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits27.4 GB131kEstimated$3,4998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 27.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
18Mac Mini M4 32GB4018bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits23.4 GB131kEstimated$7998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 23.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
19MacBook Air M4 32GB 13-inch4018bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits23.4 GB131kEstimated$1,4998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 23.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
20MacBook Air M4 32GB 15-inch4018bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits23.4 GB131kEstimated$1,6998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 23.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
21Mac Mini M4 24GB3938bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · MLX · EstimatedMLXFits15.4 GB131kEstimated$5998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 15.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
22MacBook Air M4 24GB 13-inch3938bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · MLX · EstimatedMLXFits15.4 GB131kEstimated$1,2998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 15.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
23Mac Mini M4 Pro 24GB3938bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · MLX · EstimatedMLXFits15.4 GB131kEstimated$1,3998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 15.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
24MacBook Air M4 24GB 15-inch3938bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · MLX · EstimatedMLXFits15.4 GB131kEstimated$1,4998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 15.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
25MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 14-inch3938bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · MLX · EstimatedMLXFits15.4 GB131kEstimated$1,9998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 15.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
26MacBook Pro M4 Pro 24GB 16-inch3938bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · MLX · EstimatedMLXFits15.4 GB131kEstimated$2,4998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 15.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
27Mac Mini M4 16GB3858bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits7.4 GB71kEstimated$4998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 7.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
28MacBook Air M4 16GB 13-inch3858bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits7.4 GB71kEstimated$1,0998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 7.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.
29MacBook Air M4 16GB 15-inch3858bit 78.0 tok/s Fastest evidence path: 8bit · 78.0 tok/s · Ollama · EstimatedOllamaFits7.4 GB71kEstimated$1,2998bit is the current best practical quantization. 78.0 tok/s is estimated from nearby benchmark coverage. 7.4 GB headroom remains at this quantization.

Silicon Score › Models › Gemma 4 E4B

Gemma 4 E4B Apple Silicon benchmark and best Macs

Start with the ranked Mac table above, then audit tokens per second, RAM fit, quantization, runtimes, and source links before trusting the model on your Mac.

Quantizations observed: Q4_K - Medium

5Benchmark rows
5Chip tiers covered
128.0Fastest avg tok/s (M5 Max (128 GB))
—Minimum RAM observed

Quick take

Fastest published result is 128.0 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.

Based on 5 external benchmarks; no lab runs yet.

Published runtimes: MLX, Ollama.

Need the best Mac for this model? Use BuyNeed a setup-first answer? Use RunChecking whether it fits? Use FitBrowse Macs by exact hardwareNeed the full audit trail? Use BenchComparing against rented GPUs? Use AI Datacenter Index

Best Mac shortlist

These are ranked by the fastest published Gemma 4 E4B result available for each Mac's chip family. Use them as the search answer, then open the machine page before buying.

Model search answers

How fast is Gemma 4 E4B on Mac?

Gemma 4 E4B currently has a fastest published Mac result of 128.0 tok/s on M5 Max (128 GB) at Q4_K - Medium. Check the raw rows on this page before comparing that number to a different runtime, quantization, or context length.

What is the best Mac for Gemma 4 E4B?

MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB 16-inch is the fastest published Mac-family answer for Gemma 4 E4B on this page right now, at 128.0 tok/s from its chip family. Treat that as a published benchmark starting point, not a universal buying recommendation.

Does Gemma 4 E4B fit on Apple Silicon?

Gemma 4 E4B does not yet have a published minimum-RAM fit row on this page. Use Fit before assuming it will run cleanly on a specific Mac.

Catalog record

8BTotal 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: 4.5B effective (8B 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

Gemma 4 E4B: 18 Apple Silicon field reports; best reported generation ~76.8 tok/s; best reported prompt processing ~2852 tok/s; reported RAM use ~4.7-11.2GB; seen on M5 PRO 48GB, M3 MAX 36GB, MacBook Pro M5 PRO 64GB; via oMLX, llama.cpp.

5Benchmark rows
18Field reports
5Practitioner signals
Sparse BenchmarksEvidence status

What practitioners keep saying

  • The oMLX context table reports gemma-4-E4B-it 4bit on an M3 Max 30-core 36GB Mac at 1024 tokens context with 1547 tok/s prompt processing, 62.1 tok/s generation, 0.662s TTFT, and peak memory at 7.5GB.
  • The oMLX context table reports gemma-4-E4B-it 4bit on an M3 Max 30-core 36GB Mac at 4096 tokens context with 1538 tok/s prompt processing, 60.0 tok/s generation, 2.663s TTFT, and peak memory at 7.6GB.
  • The page also includes separate batching results; keep batching separate from single-stream ranking claims until first-party methodology matches it.

Apple Silicon field sources

  • oMLX community benchmarks

    2026-05-05 · M4 16GB · oMLX v0.3.8

    A same-day oMLX sweep shows Gemma 4 E4B-oQ6 fitting comfortably on a base M4 16GB Mac through 32k context, improving small-memory setup guidance while preserving reproduction caveats.

  • oMLX community benchmarks

    2026-05-05 · M3 Max 30-core GPU, 36GB unified memory · oMLX

    A same-day oMLX row shows Gemma 4 E4B running at roughly 60 tok/s on an M3 Max 36GB setup, adding a useful middle-tier Mac profile between the constrained-memory M4 caution and the higher-end M5 Pro row.

  • oMLX community benchmarks

    2026-04-18 · M5 Pro 48GB · oMLX

    Gemma 4 E4B has an oMLX 4-bit M5 Pro 48GB profile with enough throughput to be a current small-model Mac option, especially when users want more quality headroom than E2B.

  • oMLX community benchmarks

    2026-04-12 · M4 16GB · oMLX

    A constrained-memory M4 16GB oMLX profile shows Gemma 4 E4B can fit and stay usable at short contexts, but advertised long context should not be treated as interactive without reproduction.

  • SharpAI HomeSec-Bench

    2026-03-26 · MacBook Pro M5 Pro 64GB · llama.cpp

    HomeSec-Bench gives Gemma 4 E4B an M5 Pro GGUF row with fast first-token latency and enough task score to matter for small local agents.

Runtime mentions in the field

llama.cppoMLX

Hardware mentioned in reports

16GB48GB64GBM4MacMacBookMacBook Pro

What would improve confidence

  • Reproduce Field Performance Signal
  • Upgrade To First Party Measurement

Current published coverage

Published chip coverage includes M5 Max (128 GB), M5 Pro (24 GB), M4 Pro (24 GB), M3 (16 GB), M1 (8 GB). Fastest published row is 128.0 tok/s on M5 Max (128 GB) at Q4_K - Medium.

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

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

Raw benchmark rows for Gemma 4 E4B

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

ChipQuantRAM req.ContextAvg tok/sPrompt tok/sRuntimeSource
M5 Max (128 GB)Q4_K - Medium——128.0 tok/s—MLXref
M5 Pro (24 GB)Q4_K - Medium——92.0 tok/s—Ollamaref
M4 Pro (24 GB)Q4_K - Medium——78.0 tok/s—MLXref
M3 (16 GB)Q4_K - Medium——62.0 tok/s—Ollamaref
M1 (8 GB)Q4_K - Medium——42.0 tok/s—Ollamaref

Chips with published results for Gemma 4 E4B

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

Data

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

See all models →