Can I Run Gemma 4 on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB)?

Name: LLM Configurator — GPU VRAM Checker
Author: LLM Configurator

Written by Jakub Rusinowski · Last updated June 3, 2026

Yes, comfortably — you'll have ~2 GB of headroom running Gemma 4 12B (Unified) at Q4_K_M (10 GB, ~36 tok/s (est.)) with room for up to 4K context.

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Check price on Amazon — NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB) Specs

VRAM	12 GB
Memory Bandwidth	360 GB/s

Gemma 4 12B (Unified) on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB): VRAM by quantization

Quant	VRAM needed	Fits 12 GB?	Max context
F16	28.6 GB	✗ No	—
Q8_0	17.4 GB	✗ No	—
Q6_K	14.5 GB	✗ No	—
Q5_K_M	13.1 GB	✗ No	—
Q4_K_M	11.9 GB	✓ Yes	4K
Q3_K_M	9.8 GB	✓ Yes	4K
Q2_K	8.6 GB	✓ Yes	4K

VRAM needed assumes a 4K-token context with an f16 KV cache; “Max context” is the largest window that still fits in 12 GB. Figures are estimates from parameter count, quantization and memory bandwidth — the analyzer lets you tune KV-cache quant and context.

Gemma 4 Sizes That Fit the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB)

Gemma 4 12B (Unified)	Q4_K_M · 10 GB · ~36 tok/s (est.)
Gemma 4 E4B	Q4 (QAT) · 5.5 GB · ~65 tok/s (est.)
Gemma 4 E2B	Q4 (QAT) · 5 GB · ~72 tok/s (est.)

Buy vs. rent Gemma 4

Buy the GPU

~$329

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB) · MSRP

Rent by the hour

from $0.34/hr

RTX 4090 (24 GB) class

At 2 hrs/day, buying (~$329) beats renting at $0.34/hr after about 16 months.

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