Model record
Gemma 4 E4B
Google DeepMind · Apache 2.0 · verified
What this model is
E4B means 4.5B effective parameters. The full checkpoint is about 8B parameters because the Per-Layer Embedding tables are stored even though they are lookup-only.
The architecture is dense. Every parameter is part of the active path, so memory and speed scale with the full model rather than a smaller expert subset.
Memory and quantization
Decimal GB. Q4_0 uses Google's QAT GGUF; other sizes use the published Unsloth GGUF. All totals include the multimodal projector.
| Quantization | Published files | 8K estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Q4_K_M | 5.97 GB | 7.74 GB |
| Q4_0 | 6.15 GB | 7.92 GB |
| Q8_0 | 9.19 GB | 10.96 GB |
Estimate formula: published weight files + 0.2716 GB per 8K tokens × context / 8K + 1.5 GB runtime overhead. Sizes are decimal GB, not GiB. At 8K context, the smallest listed build is about 7.7 GB before OS and application reserve.
Conservative FP16 estimate from the public config. Seven of 42 layers use global attention and local layers use a 512-token sliding window.
KV method source: https://huggingface.co/google/gemma-4-E4B-it/raw/main/config.json
Speed heuristic
Not benchmarked here. The calculator uses the 4.5B effective parameter count only as a relative speed heuristic.
Active path: 4.5B parameters. This is a relative speed signal only; it is not a tokens/sec benchmark.
Runtimes
- Ollama
- llama.cpp
- MLX
ollama run gemma4:e4bLicense restrictions
Apache 2.0; the separate Gemma Prohibited Use Policy and intended-use statement still apply.
This is a plain-language summary, not legal advice. Read the linked license before commercial deployment or redistribution.
Known issues
- The download is closer to an 8B model than a 4.5B model because the embedding tables are still stored.
- Vision and audio support require the multimodal projector files.
Sources
- https://huggingface.co/google/gemma-4-E4B-it
- https://huggingface.co/google/gemma-4-E4B-it-qat-q4_0-gguf
- https://huggingface.co/unsloth/gemma-4-E4B-it-GGUF
- https://ollama.com/library/gemma4
- https://huggingface.co/google/gemma-4-E4B-it/raw/main/config.json
This page is an independent compatibility guide, not official documentation. Verify the primary source before downloading or deploying a model.