Home / Can I run it? / Gemma 3 12B / Gemma 3 12B on an RTX 3060 12GB

Yes. Gemma 3 12B at Q4_K_M needs about 9.5 GB, and the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB has 12.0 GB usable at a ~4k context.

Can I run Gemma 3 12B on an RTX 3060 12GB?

Gemma 3 12B at Q4_K_M needs about 9.5 GB, and the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB has 12.0 GB usable. That figure is 12 GB of VRAM on the spec sheet, of which 12.0 GB is usable for weights and cache, at 360 GB/s memory bandwidth. Google’s mid-small Gemma 3, sized for 12–16 GB cards that want more than a 4B or 8B. These are estimates from our formula, not measured benchmarks.

Quant that fits

Q4_K_M Fits with headroom

Memory needed

9.5 GB at Q4_K_M, ~4k context

Usable VRAM

12.0 GB of 12 GB VRAM

Est. tokens/sec

29–41 estimate

gemma-3-12b-it · GeForce RTX 3060 12GB · Everything this machine runs · Q4 vs Q8 vs FP16

Memory at each quant

Estimated tokens per second

Estimate: 29–41 tokens/sec at Q4_K_M. This is a bandwidth-derived range, not a bench. Efficiency is a 60–85% GPU band from How we calculate.

Context headroom

We do not have a published KV config for this model, so the memory need is the ~4k-context estimate only. Use the VRAM calculator to explore longer chats.

What to do instead

• Q8_0 needs 15.9 GB and does not fit here. The GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB has 16.0 GB usable, enough for Q8.
• See the best GPU for this model family and the gemma-3-12b-it model page.

Other hardware for Gemma 3 12B

• Gemma 3 12B on an RTX 3070 TiWon’t fit
• Gemma 3 12B on an RTX 3080Tight
• Gemma 3 12B on an RTX 4060 Ti 16GBTight
• Gemma 3 12B on an RTX 4070 Ti SuperTight
• Gemma 3 12B on an RTX 4090Fits
• Gemma 3 12B on an RTX 5070 TiTight

Other models on an RTX 3060 12GB

• Qwen3-32B on an RTX 3060 12GBWon’t fit
• Qwen3-30B-A3B on an RTX 3060 12GBWon’t fit
• Qwen3.8-27B on an RTX 3060 12GBWon’t fit
• Gemma 3 27B on an RTX 3060 12GBWon’t fit
• Gemma 4 31B on an RTX 3060 12GBWon’t fit
• gpt-oss-20b on an RTX 3060 12GBWon’t fit