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Can the NVIDIA RTX PRO 3000 Blackwell Generation Laptop GPU run Gemma 3 12B IT?

59Good quality (B) · 59 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 80/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.

Yes, it runs well (tight fit)

Runs well (tight fit). At Q6_K it needs about 11.9 GB of 12.0 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 46.9 tok/s.

Best quant
Q6_K
Generation speed
46.9 tok/s
Prompt processing
1,717 tok/s
First token (1K prompt)
0.6 s
Largest safe context
9K

Best app to run it on the NVIDIA RTX PRO 3000 Blackwell Generation Laptop GPU

On Windows

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

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
  • 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

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

Quantized files · GGUF

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

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

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 3 days ago against Hugging Face, Ollama and GitHub.

How it’s rated

Quality 59Good quality (B) · 59 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 80/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.
How capable the model itself is at Q6_K, 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 welltight fit
How well it runs on the NVIDIA RTX PRO 3000 Blackwell Generation Laptop GPU: 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.26.7 / 45
Memory fitFull marks when everything sits in GPU memory; fewer when part spills to system RAM.24.0 / 25
SpeedGeneration speed against a 40 tokens/s target for LLMs, or render time against a target for image and video.15.0 / 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 score80.7 / 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 PRO 3000 Blackwell Generation Laptop GPU

Quant Memory needed Available Speed Runs Quality Download
Q2_K 6.8 GB 12.0 GB 111 tok/s Runs great 42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 71/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
Q3_K_M 7.8 GB 12.0 GB 87.4 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 9.3 GB 12.0 GB 67.6 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 80/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q5_K_M 10.5 GB 12.0 GB 55.9 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 80/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
Q6_K 11.9 GB 12.0 GB 46.9 tok/s Runs welltight fit 59Good quality (B) · 59 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 80/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
Q8_0 14.8 GB 12.0 GB 11.6 tok/s Runs welloffloads to RAM 60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 60/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
F16 26.3 GB 12.0 GB 2.5 tok/s Very slowheavy RAM offload 60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 49/100 (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

Quick answers

How much memory does Gemma 3 12B IT need on the NVIDIA RTX PRO 3000 Blackwell Generation Laptop GPU 12GB?

At Q6_K it needs about 11.9 GB. The NVIDIA RTX PRO 3000 Blackwell Generation Laptop GPU 12GB has 12.0 GB usable.

How fast is Gemma 3 12B IT on the NVIDIA RTX PRO 3000 Blackwell Generation Laptop GPU 12GB?

About 46.9 tok/s at Q6_K, an estimate from the hardware’s memory bandwidth and the size of the model.

Which quantization of Gemma 3 12B IT should I use on the NVIDIA RTX PRO 3000 Blackwell Generation Laptop GPU 12GB?

Q6_K. Of the versions that fit, it is the one that runs best; when two run equally well, the check prefers the higher-rated one.

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.

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