What you need to run Gemma 4 E4B

About Gemma 4 E4B

Gemma 4 E4B is a general chat model from Google. Best small model for everyday questions and writing. Running it locally needs about 7.4 GB of memory, and the download is 6.6 GB. It is a mixture of experts model: only about 1.8 GB of its weights are read for each word, so it generates much faster than a dense model of the same size, but all 6.6 GB still has to fit in memory.

Smallest Mac that runs it

The least memory you need, by Apple chip:

• M1: from 8 GB
• M1 Pro: from 16 GB
• M1 Max: from 32 GB
• M1 Ultra: from 64 GB
• M2: from 8 GB
• M2 Pro: from 16 GB
• M2 Max: from 32 GB
• M2 Ultra: from 64 GB
• M3: from 8 GB
• M3 Pro: from 18 GB
• M3 Max: from 36 GB
• M3 Ultra: from 96 GB
• M4: from 16 GB
• M4 Pro: from 24 GB
• M4 Max: from 36 GB
• M5: from 16 GB
• M5 Pro: from 24 GB
• M5 Max: from 36 GB

Graphics cards

Runs well on: RTX 3060 12GB, RTX 3070, RTX 3080 10GB, RTX 3090, RTX 4060, RTX 4060 Ti 16GB, RTX 4070 / 4070 Super, RTX 4070 Ti Super, RTX 4080 / 4080 Super, RTX 4090, RTX 5060, RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, RTX 5070, RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080, RTX 5090, Radeon RX 7800 XT, Radeon RX 9070 XT, Radeon RX 7900 XTX.

Hardware to run it

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• Smallest Mac: M3 with 8 GB. See it on Amazon
• Smallest graphics card: RTX 4060 (8 GB). See it on Amazon
• Storage: this model is a 6.6 GB download, and most people end up keeping several. A fast external SSD keeps your main drive free. See SSDs on Amazon

Lighter and heavier alternatives

• Qwen 3.5 4B: needs about 4 GB, a lighter choice. Small all-rounder that reads images too.
• Gemma 4 E2B: needs about 5.3 GB, a lighter choice. Tiny and quick. Runs on almost anything, phones included.
• Qwen 3.5 9B: needs about 7.4 GB, a heavier choice. Strong everyday helper, 256K context, sees images.
• Gemma 4 12B: needs about 8.9 GB, a heavier choice. Sweet spot for 16 GB machines. Good writing and reasoning.

Questions