Gemma 3 4B IT on Jetson AGX Orin 64GB: FITS
Method v1.0 · dataset 2026-09-07 · verified 2026-09-07 · last updated September 2026
Gemma 3 4B IT at GGUF Q4_K_M / INT4 (AWQ, MLC q4f16), 4096 tokens × 1 sequence on Jetson AGX Orin 64GB: 5.7 GB of 64 GB — FITS (9%). Weights 2.3 GB (class A) + KV cache 0.6 GB + runtime 0.6 GB + OS 0.9 GB + reserve. Largest context that fits at this concurrency: 131072 tokens; 79 concurrent sequences at 4096.
Q4 quantisation · 4096-token context · 1 sequence · llama.cpp · headless. Change any of those on the live engine.
Memory breakdown
| Part | Amount | Evidence | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weights | 2.3 GB | class A | gemma-3-4b-it-Q4_K_M.gguf: 2.49 GB published file size |
| KV cache | 0.6 GB | class D | 2 × layers × KV heads × head dim × 4352 tokens × 2 bytes × 1 sequence |
| Vision tower | 0.8 GB | class A/D | 0.43 B vision-tower parameters (12 × layers × hidden²) × 2 bytes (fp16) |
| Runtime overhead | 0.6 GB | class E | llama.cpp / Ollama: 400 MB base + 6% of weights (CUDA context + compute buffer for the prompt batch (n_batch 512)) |
| OS headroom | 0.9 GB | class E | headless |
| Reserve | 0.5 GB | class E | 10% of subtotal |
| Total | 5.7 GB | of 64 GB — 9% — FITS | |
Weights source
- unsloth (community GGUF) · hf:unsloth/gemma-3-4b-it-GGUF · verified 2026-09-07 · source · class A
gemma-3-4b-it-Q4_K_M.gguf 2.49 GB (published file size)
Headroom
Largest context that fits at 1 sequence: 131072 tokens. Max concurrent sequences at 4096 tokens: 79. Sequence ladder: 53 comfortable (≤60%) · 64 likely viable (≤85%) · fails at —.
Other quantisations on Jetson AGX Orin 64GB
| Quantisation | Weight source | Total | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| FP16 / BF16 | estimated | 11 GB | FITS |
| FP8 (E4M3) | estimated | 7.2 GB | FITS |
| INT8 / GGUF Q8_0 | estimated | 7.4 GB | FITS |
| GGUF Q4_K_M / INT4 (AWQ, MLC q4f16) | measured artefact | 5.7 GB | FITS |
| NVFP4 | estimated | 5.3 GB | FITS |
Gemma 3 4B IT on other modules
Constraints
| Type | Required | Available | Utilization | Status | Evidence · confidence | Source / method |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| memory | 5,790 MB | 65,536 MB | 9% | PASS | D · MEDIUM | NVIDIA · nvidia.com:jetson-modules-spec-table · verified 2026-09-07 |
Sources
- NVIDIA · nvidia.com:jetson-modules-spec-table · verified 2026-09-07 · source · class A
Jetson AGX Orin 64GB: 64 GB
- Hugging Face (mirror: unsloth/gemma-3-4b-it) · hf:unsloth/gemma-3-4b-it · config.json · verified 2026-09-07 · source · class A
layers 34, kv_heads 4, head_dim 256, max context 131072
- unsloth (community GGUF) · hf:unsloth/gemma-3-4b-it-GGUF · verified 2026-09-07 · source · class A
gemma-3-4b-it-Q4_K_M.gguf 2.49 GB (published file size)
- NVIDIA · nvidia-blog:mastering-llm-techniques-inference-optimization · Key-value caching · verified 2026-09-07 · source · class A
KV cache size per token = 2 × (num_layers) × (num_heads × dim_head) × precision_in_bytes
- NVIDIA · nvidia-docs:cuda-for-tegra-appnote · Memory Management · verified 2026-09-07 · source · class A
Jetson iGPU and CPU share the same DRAM: OS, runtime and model all draw on one pool.
Assumptions
- Weights: gemma-3-4b-it-Q4_K_M.gguf: 2.49 GB published file size (class A).
- KV cache: 2 × 34 layers × 4 KV heads × 256 head dim × 4352 tokens × 2 bytes × 1 sequence = 578 MB (class D formula).
- 1 image × 256 tokens added to the context (SigLIP 896 / 14 = 64² patches pooled to 256 soft tokens per image (Gemma 3 technical report §2); class D).
- Vision tower: 0.43 B vision-tower parameters (12 × layers × hidden²) × 2 bytes (fp16) (class D).
- Runtime overhead: llama.cpp / Ollama: 400 MB base + 6% of weights (CUDA context + compute buffer for the prompt batch (n_batch 512)) (class E).
- OS 900 MB (headless) + 10% reserve from the shared memory budget (class E).
Method and limitations
total = weights (published artefact size, else parameters × bytes per parameter) + KV cache (2 × layers × KV heads × head dim × context × bytes × sequences) + vision tower (VLM) + runtime overhead + OS headroom + reserve, on the memory budget shared with Camera Stream Capacity. Verdict: FITS < 85% of module memory ≤ TIGHT < 100% ≤ DOES_NOT_FIT. Vision pipelines take their per-part figures from the memory estimator and are rebuilt on the same budget.
- Weights are class A when a published quantised artefact matches; otherwise parameters × bytes-per-parameter is class D for block quants (Q4, INT8, NVFP4) and class A for fixed-width types (FP16, FP8).
- KV cache, runtime overhead, OS headroom and reserve are class D/E formulas — engineering models, not vendor measurements. Validate on device with
sudo tegrastats; llama.cpp prints its own KV and compute-buffer sizes at load. - Full method, evidence classes and the confidence rule: Model Memory Fit methodology.
Links
- Live engine (this exact workload): https://edgeaistack.ai/engines/model-memory-fit/?mode=vlm&hw=jetson_agx_orin&model=gemma-3-4b-it&quant=q4&ctx=4096&seq=1&rt=llama_cpp&os=headless&mv=1.0&dv=2026-09-07
- Methodology: /methodology/model-memory-fit/
- Dataset: /datasets/model-memory.json
- Hugging Face repository: google/gemma-3-4b-it
Change one input and re-run.
The live engine keeps every source line and gives you a fresh permalink and summary.