Gemma 3 12B IT on NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X (5120-core GPU) (24 GB)

Can the NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X (5120-core GPU) (24 GB) run Gemma 3 12B IT?

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At Q4_K_M it needs about 9.7 GB of 12.0 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 30.2 tok/s.

Best quant: Q4_K_M
Generation speed: 30.2 tok/s
Prompt processing: 1,416 tok/s
First token (1K prompt): 0.7 s
Largest safe context: 35K

Best app to run it on the NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X (5120-core GPU) (24 GB)

On Linux

Ollama

Command line + local API · runs on llama.cpp (ggml), MLX (Apple silicon, preview)

One command with Ollama’s own build of this model.
Serves an OpenAI-compatible API that other apps and coding tools can use.

ollama run gemma3:12b-it-q4_K_M

LM Studio Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.
llama.cpp Usually the first to support new model architectures.

How we choose: the files published for this model, your operating system and GPU, whether it fits fully in memory, and published speed tests (MLX vs llama.cpp on Apple silicon, vLLM vs llama.cpp vs Ollama on NVIDIA). Details.

Download Gemma 3 12B IT

Recommended for the NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X (5120-core GPU) (24 GB): Q4_K_M. Every other quantization has its own download link in the table below.

Quickest · Ollama

One command downloads a ready-to-run version and starts a chat.

Get Ollama at ollama.com/download (opens in a new tab) · model page (opens in a new tab)

ollama run gemma3:12b-it-q4_K_M

Quantized files · GGUF

Works in LM Studio, llama.cpp, Jan and Ollama. No sign-in needed.

Download the Q4_K_M file (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/ggml-org/gemma-3-12b-it-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/ggml-org/gemma-3-12b-it-GGUF:Q4_K_M

Original weights · Hugging Face

Full-precision files from Google, for fine-tuning, vLLM, Transformers.

huggingface.co/google/gemma-3-12b-it (opens in a new tab)

Free Hugging Face account needed: request access on the model page, and Google approves it (usually within minutes to a few hours).

Official repo · GitHub

Reference code, inference scripts and docs from Google. The weights themselves download from Hugging Face.

github.com/google-deepmind/gemma (opens in a new tab)

Google DeepMind’s official Gemma library.

git clone https://github.com/google-deepmind/gemma

Links checked 1 day ago against Hugging Face, Ollama and GitHub.

How it’s rated

Quality 57Good quality (B) · 57 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 78/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.: How capable the model itself is at Q4_K_M, from its editorial quality tier scaled by the quantization or precision. It’s the same on any hardware that runs this variant. Scale: A+ 85+ · A 70+ · B 55+ · C 40+ · D under 40.
Runs Runs great: How well it runs on the NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X (5120-core GPU) (24 GB): speed, capped by how well it fits in memory. Runs great: 30+ tokens/s (or near the image, video or decision speed target) · Runs well: 10+ tokens/s · Slow: 3+ tokens/s · Very slow: under 3 · Won’t run: doesn’t fit even with offload. A tight fit or RAM offload caps it at Runs well; heavy offload caps it at Slow.

Match score

To order lists, each result also gets a match score out of 100 from four parts. It favors the most capable model that still runs well.

Model qualityEditorial quality tier of the model, scaled by the quantization or precision used.	25.7 / 45
Memory fitFull marks when the model fits in the share of unified memory the GPU can use; fewer when it goes past that limit.	25.0 / 25
SpeedGeneration speed against a 40 tokens/s target for LLMs, or render time against a target for image and video.	13.0 / 15
Memory useRewards using the memory you have, so a bigger, better variant beats a tiny one that leaves most memory idle.	15.0 / 15
Match score	78.7 / 100

The match score orders results; it is not shown as a grade. Quality and Runs are the two ratings in the tables.

Every quantization on the NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X (5120-core GPU) (24 GB)

Quant	Memory needed	Available	Speed	Runs	Quality	Download
`Q2_K`	7.1 GB	12.0 GB	49.6 tok/s	Runs great	42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q3_K_M`	8.2 GB	12.0 GB	39.0 tok/s	Runs great	50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q4_K_M`	9.7 GB	12.0 GB	30.2 tok/s	Runs great	57Good quality (B) · 57 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 78/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q5_K_M`	10.9 GB	12.0 GB	24.9 tok/s	Runs welltight fit	58Good quality (B) · 58 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q6_K`	12.2 GB	12.0 GB	17.8 tok/s	Runs wellover GPU memory limit	59Good quality (B) · 59 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 61/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q8_0`	15.2 GB	12.0 GB	—	Won't run	60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 8/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`F16`	26.6 GB	12.0 GB	—	Won't run	60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 8/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab) Original weights (opens in a new tab)

Memory figures assume 8K of context. Longer conversations or documents grow the KV cache.

Other hardware that runs it

60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Q8_0 · 42.3 tok/s · Runs great
60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Q8_0 · 47.9 tok/s · Runs great
60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Q8_0 · 51.6 tok/s · Runs great
59Good quality (B) · 59 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Q6_K · 46.9 tok/s · Runs great
59Good quality (B) · 59 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Q6_K · 51.4 tok/s · Runs great
59Good quality (B) · 59 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Q6_K · 62.6 tok/s · Runs great

Estimates come from published hardware specs and our open formulas, not from running the model on your machine. Real speed varies with runtime, drivers and settings. Numbers marked “Measured” come from a linked benchmark.