Yes — Gemma 3 4B runs on 8 GB laptop
Gemma 3 4B (4B) needs 3.5GB VRAM at Q5 vs your 8GB VRAM. Estimated ~7–10 tok/s (RAM offload).
Tiny multimodal. Phone-class, also great on iGPU laptops.
| quant | weights | + KV 8k | fits 0GB? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q4 | 2.8GB | ~3GB | × tight/no |
| Q5 | 3.5GB | ~3.7GB | × tight/no |
| Q8 | 4.8GB | ~5GB | × tight/no |
| FP16 | 8GB | ~8.2GB | × tight/no |
File size ≠ runtime. KV grows with context — halve to 4k/2k if long chats OOM. Leave 1–2GB free.
Can Gemma 3 4B run on 8 GB laptop?
Gemma 3 4B (4B) needs 3.5GB VRAM at Q5 vs your 8GB VRAM. Estimated ~7–10 tok/s (RAM offload). Model context 128k. Compare with all models or re-check with your exact specs on the bench.
Unload with ollama stop, cap layers --num-gpu 28, cut context to 2k. See the OOM fixer on the homepage.
Start Q5. Bigger model at Q4 beats smaller at Q8. Only go Q8 if 2GB+ headroom remains.
About ~7–10 tok/s (RAM offload) when 100% on GPU. Any CPU offload drops speed 5–20× — check ollama ps.
Gemma — check terms before commercial use. Filter commercial-safe on the bench.