Apple192 GB VRAM800 GB/s$0/hr

Gemma 2 27B on Mac M2 Ultra (192GB unified): Does It Fit, How Fast, What It Costs

Gemma 2 27B at FP8 (E4M3) needs 27.0 GB for its weights and 51.7 GB in total at 8K context with 8 concurrent users. That means it fits on a single Mac M2 Ultra (192GB unified). Every figure is computed by tokcalc's open-source capacity model.

Fits?
Yes, 1 GPU
51.7 GB needed / 192 GB available
Decode speed
28.89
tok/s per stream
Aggregate
250.0
tok/s @ 8 concurrent
Cost / 1M tokens
—
1× Mac M2 Ultra (192GB unified) · quote required
What changes as you add Mac M2 Ultra (192GB unified)s
Tensor-parallel degree vs VRAM, throughput, and cost. Cost scales linearly with GPU count; decode throughput scales near-linearly too, so cost per token stays roughly flat.
GPUsTotal VRAMVRAM neededDecode tok/sAggregate tok/sTTFTCost / 1M tokFits?
1× Mac192 GB51.7 GB28.89250.032.83 s—✓
2× Mac384 GB51.7 GB49.11100016.43 s—✓
4× Mac768 GB51.7 GB98.2240008.23 s—✓
8× Mac1536 GB51.7 GB196.4160004.13 s—✓
Concurrency vs context length
On 1× Mac M2 Ultra (192GB unified) at FP8 (E4M3). KV cache scales linearly with context, so this is the number of users your GPUs can actually serve.
ContextConcurrent usersKV per requestFits?
4K1061.54 GB✓ fits
8K533.09 GB✓ fits
33K1312.35 GB✓ fits
66K624.70 GB✓ fits
131K349.39 GB✓ fits
Other GPUs that run Gemma 2 27B
Same workload, same quantization — ranked by value (tokens per dollar-hour).
GPUGPUsAggregate tok/sCost / 1M tok
RTX 5090 32GB2×2640$0.1052
AMD MI300X 192GB1×2297$0.3024
L40S 48GB2×1273$0.3055
AMD MI325X 288GB1×2600$0.3739
A100 80GB SXM41×866.7$0.3846
Intel Gaudi 3 128GB1×1430$0.3885
Frequently asked questions

Can Gemma 2 27B run on Mac M2 Ultra (192GB unified)?

Yes. Gemma 2 27B at FP8 (E4M3) needs 51.7 GB including the KV cache, and Mac M2 Ultra (192GB unified) has 192 GB — so it fits on a single GPU.

How fast is Gemma 2 27B on Mac M2 Ultra (192GB unified)?

28.89 tokens/sec per stream and 250.0 tok/s aggregate with continuous batching at 8 concurrent users. Time to first token is 32.83 s, and inter-token latency is 34.6 ms.

What does Gemma 2 27B on Mac M2 Ultra (192GB unified) cost per million tokens?

— per 1M output tokens at 1× Mac M2 Ultra (192GB unified). That is the marginal hardware cost — add idle capacity, ops, and egress for the real figure.

How much VRAM does Gemma 2 27B need on Mac M2 Ultra (192GB unified)?

27.0 GB for the weights at FP8 (E4M3), plus 24.7 GB of KV cache for 8 concurrent requests at 8K context — 51.7 GB total. Every extra concurrent user at long context costs more, so leave headroom.

Is Mac M2 Ultra (192GB unified) the right choice for Gemma 2 27B?

It works. Compare — per 1M tokens against the alternatives below — the cheapest option that fits the same workload is 8× RTX 3080 10GB at $0.0248, and the fastest is 2× Cerebras CS-3 (WSE-3) at 29467 tok/s.

Adjust the workload yourself

Same formulas, your context length, concurrency, and quantisation.

Open in calculator