Run Gemma 4 26B-A4B on M5 Max

Yes — Gemma 4 26B-A4B (26B) runs at 50 tok/s on M5 Max with 128 GB RAM using Q4_K_M quantization via MLX. First token latency is 0.5s. Google's 26B MoE model activating only 3.8B params — near-frontier quality at 24 GB.

Speed

tok/s

First Token

0.5

seconds

RAM Needed

128

GB minimum

Engine

MLX

recommended

Benchmark Details

LLMCheck measured Gemma 4 26B-A4B on M5 Max using the standard methodology: Q4_K_M quantization, 256-token input, 512-token output, 3 runs averaged on a freshly-booted system.

Metric	Value
Tokens per second	50 tok/s
Time to first token	0.5s
Quantization	Q4_K_M
Minimum RAM	128 GB
Recommended engine	MLX
Parameters	26B
Benchmark date	2026-04

Q4_K_M 26B MLX M5 Max

Setup Guide: Run Gemma 4 26B-A4B on M5 Max

The recommended engine for Gemma 4 26B-A4B on M5 Max is MLX. Install with pip and pull the model:

pip install mlx-lm

mlx_lm.generate --model mlx-community/gemma-4-26b-a4b-q4_k_m --prompt "Hello!"

Alternatively, you can use Ollama for a simpler setup:

ollama run gemma4:26b-a4b

Performance on Other Apple Silicon Chips

Chip	Speed	First Token	Min RAM	Engine
M4 Max	40 tok/s	0.7s	48 GB	MLX
M5 Pro	35 tok/s	0.8s	24 GB	Ollama
M4 Pro	28 tok/s	1.0s	24 GB	Ollama

System Requirements

To run Gemma 4 26B-A4B on M5 Max you need:

• Mac with M5 Max chip (or newer)
• 128 GB unified memory minimum
• macOS 13 Ventura or later
• ~108-128 GB free disk space for the model file
• MLX installed (see our Ollama install guide)

Compare More Models

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