gemma-3-1b-it-mlx-16bit

16-bit MLX conversion of google/gemma-3-1b-it optimized for Apple Silicon native GPU inference.

Converted by: SirSahOl
Source Model: google/gemma-3-1b-it
Framework: MLX by Apple
Quantization: 16-bit (Average 16.00 (unquantized bfloat16) bits per weight)
Format: safetensors
License: gemma


Model Details

  • Architecture: Gemma3ForCausalLM
  • Parameters: 1B
  • Context Length: 32,768 tokens
  • Format: MLX (Apple Silicon native GPU format)
  • Quantization: 16-bit (Average 16.00 (unquantized bfloat16) bits per weight)
  • Active VRAM Footprint: ~2.6 GB (Minimum recommended: 8 GB Unified Memory)

Quick Start

Installation

pip install mlx-lm

Usage

CLI

# Chat interactively
mlx_lm.chat --model SirSahOl/gemma-3-1b-it-chat-mlx-16bit

# Generate text
mlx_lm.generate --model SirSahOl/gemma-3-1b-it-chat-mlx-16bit --prompt "Write a short poem about artificial intelligence."

Python API (with Chat Template)

from mlx_lm import load, generate

model, tokenizer = load("SirSahOl/gemma-3-1b-it-chat-mlx-16bit")

messages = [
    {"role": "user", "content": "Explain quantum superposition in simple terms."}
]
prompt = tokenizer.apply_chat_template(
    messages, tokenize=False, add_generation_prompt=True
)

response = generate(model, tokenizer, prompt=prompt, verbose=True)
print(response)

Performance Benchmarks

Measured Benchmarks (Apple M1)

Metric 4-bit 8-bit 16-bit
Tokens/sec 50.45 38.56 20.92
TTFT 20.0 ms 26.01 ms 48.02 ms
Peak Memory 55.8 MB 67.7 MB 64.7 MB

Benchmarked on Apple M1 with 8GB unified memory. Average over 5 runs with 256 max tokens.


Multi-Quantization Comparison

Evaluate your hardware budget and choose the optimal precision:

Variant Disk Size VRAM Footprint Target Apple Silicon Hardware Key Advantage
4-bit MLX ~0.9 GB ~0.9 GB M1 / M2 / M3 / M4 (8GB+) Maximum generation speed and lowest RAM overhead.
8-bit MLX ~1.5 GB ~1.5 GB M1 / M2 / M3 / M4 Pro/Max (16GB+) Balanced accuracy and generation speed; near-lossless reasoning.
16-bit MLX (This Repository) ~2.8 GB ~2.8 GB M2 / M3 / M4 Max/Ultra (32GB+) Full unquantized precision; reference evaluation quality.

Who Should Use This?

Your Hardware Recommended Quantization
M1/M2/M3/M4 (8GB – 16GB) 4-bit — Best balance of speed, low memory, and multitasking capability
M1/M2/M3/M4 Pro/Max (18GB – 36GB) 8-bit — Higher quality reasoning with comfortable memory headroom
M1/M2/M3/M4 Max/Ultra (36GB – 192GB) 16-bit — Unquantized full precision, zero quality degradation

General guidance:

  • Use 4-bit if you want to run this model alongside IDEs, browsers, and background development tools.
  • Use 8-bit if you have 16GB+ unified memory and require superior reasoning and code accuracy.
  • Use 16-bit for research, benchmarking, evaluation, or high-end workstation deployments.

Other Quantization Variants


LM Studio & Local Inference Setup Guide

To prevent runaway loops and ensure correct conversational turn-taking, configure custom stop tokens in your local inference runtime:

  1. <|im_start|>
  2. <|im_end|>
  3. <|endoftext|>

Prompt Template Formatting

  • System Prefix: <|im_start|>system\n
  • System Suffix: <|im_end|>\n
  • User Prefix: <|im_start|>user\n
  • Assistant Suffix: <|im_end|>\n<|im_start|>assistant\n

Ollama Quickstart

FROM SirSahOl/gemma-3-1b-it-chat-mlx-16bit
PARAMETER stop "<|im_start|>"
PARAMETER stop "<|im_end|>"
PARAMETER stop "<|endoftext|>"
PARAMETER temperature 0.7
ollama create gemma-3-1b-it-chat-mlx-16bit -f Modelfile
ollama run gemma-3-1b-it-chat-mlx-16bit

Conversion Details

Property Value
Source Model google/gemma-3-1b-it
Quantization 16-bit
mlx-lm Version 0.31.3
Conversion Time 19.58s
Output Size 1.9 GB
Date 2026-09-22T06:26:48.280280+00:00

Reproduction

To reproduce this conversion:

pip install mlx-lm==0.31.3
python3 -m mlx_lm convert --hf-path /Users/z4/.cache/huggingface/hub/models--google--gemma-3-1b-it/snapshots/dcc83ea841ab6100d6b47a070329e1ba4cf78752 --mlx-path output/gemma-3-1b-it-mlx-16bit

Limitations & Known Issues

  • 4-bit group-wise quantization introduces minor precision loss compared to unquantized weights; for deep mathematical derivations or precision-critical reasoning, test the 8-bit or 16-bit variants.
  • High context sequences (>32K tokens) require sufficient unified memory headroom; ensure unified memory is not overcommitted.
  • This is a weight-only MLX conversion designed specifically for Apple Silicon GPUs (M1/M2/M3/M4 series).

License

This model conversion inherits the license of the source model: gemma.

See the original model card for full license details.


Changelog

Version Date Changes
v1.0 2026-09-22 Initial conversion

Converted with MLX Foundry — a professional pipeline for converting models to Apple MLX format.

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